Why do refer to a certain devices as the gallows rather than the gallow? What's particularly plural about it?

The OED Online says:

quote:

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In OE. the sing. gal{asg}a and the pl. gal{asg}an are both used for ‘a gallows’, the pl. having reference presumably to the two posts of which the apparatus mainly consisted. Occasional examples of the sing. form occur in ME., and even down to the 17th c.; but from the 13th c. onwards the plural galwes and its later phonetic representatives have been the prevailing forms. So far as our material shows, Caxton is the first writer to speak of ‘a gallows’, though he also uses the older expression ‘a pair of gallows’; but it is, of course, possible that the pl. form was sometimes treated as a sing. much earlier. From the 16th c. gallows has been (exc. arch. in ‘pair of gallows’) used as a sing., with a new plural gallowses; the latter, though perh. not strictly obsolete, is now seldom used; the formation is felt to be somewhat uncouth, so that the use of the word in the plural is commonly evaded.

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I don't remember the source, but somewhere I read that things that have two identical parts are often referred to in the plural, such as scissors (two blades), pants (two legs), etc. Alternatively, they are sometimes called a pair of scissors, a pair of pants, and so on. It's possible that scissor referred to a single blade; hence, pair of scissors, which was shortened to scissors. Likewise, pant may have meant a pant leg, which became pair of pants, then just pants. I guess you can think of these nouns that are plural in construction but singular in usa as collective nouns. This site calls them binary nouns.

Binary nouns include scissors, pants, trousers, glasses, binoculars, and shorts. I'm sure there must be more.

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

We think of the archetypal gallows as that single-posted thing constructed as you get letters wrong; but presumably a working gallows would often have been a crossbeam over a pair of posts.

Quirk et al. in their 1985 grammar of English call binary nouns 'summation plurals'.

Some gallows were actually made with a triangular top with three legs. This arrangement was often known as "The Three-legged Mare". There's some information here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyburn.

There's actually a pub in York with this name and it have many gruesome pictures of a Three-legged Mare. http://www.yorkpubguide.com/pubs/details.asp?PubId=257

This is what World Wide Words and The Word Detective say about the "pair of ..." question.

Thanks for bringing this thread back up, tinman.

As to “gallows” specifically, I found this explanation in OED. The * represents a strange character I can’t make; it looks something like an oval with a pistol on top, pointing right.

Edit: Oops! I see that tinman already posted, about three years ago, what I was about to post.

quote:

Originally posted by shufitz:
Thanks for bringing this thread back up, tinman.

As to “gallows” specifically, I found this explanation in OED. The * represents a strange character I can’t make; it looks something like an oval with a pistol on top, pointing right.

Probably yogh Ȝ ȝ or the Old English ᵹ

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

It's odd that--as Michael Quinion points out--nether garments seem to all be referred to in the plural: pants, trousers, shorts, panties, etc.

Pardon me for mentioning another unmentionable, but why is the brassiere never referred to as "a pair of brassieres" or "a pair of bras?" Certainly there is a pair there too!

Wordmatic

P.S. I had a first-grade teacher who would routinely ask a student to please bring her "a scissor."

It seems to me that it only applies to those, essentially singular, garments that are worn below the waist. Shirts, like brassieres, are referred to as singular, although they are as plural as are trousers. Garments that are truly plural - gloves, shoes, cufflinks - are always referred to as such.

It can't be due to the way in which we refer to physiology, since, although we talk about a "pair of legs, knees or feet" we also speak of arms, hands and elbows in the same way.

In rereading this thread I see that aput had posted here. Those of you who have been here awhile probably remember him as a serious, and erudite, poster on language and words. I believe he was a linguist in London. He left us suddenly, saying he was leaving the Internet, and I miss him.

I sent him a PM today, asking if by any chance he were back. I'd love for him to join us again.