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英语与汉语分属两个不同的语言体系，这种区别虽然给英语学习增添了一些难度，却也为它带来了不少乐趣。 今天英大为大家整理了一些只能用作复数的单词，背后的故事也惊喜多多，一起来学习吧。
Looking back, to around the 16th century, there was once a singular trouser – or, rather, a singular trouse; the –er form was always plural and may have been modelled on ‘drawers’. You might expect trouse to have originally designated a single leg, in much the manner of sleeve, but this is not the case. A trouse was not a world away from modern day trousers. But at the same time, trouses was used in its plural form for the same object. 还有一些表示衣物的词语，它们也经常以复数形式出现，如pants、shorts（短裤）、 leggings（紧身裤）、jeans、flares（喇叭裤）、tights（连裤袜/紧身裤）、 overalls（工装裤）、dungarees（背带裤） 等。
The word scissors dates back to the 15th century, and in its first-known uses appeared either as singular or plural. The latter quickly overtook the former in popularity, and today you are only likely to encounter the singular scissor as a verb or used attributively to form a compound noun such as scissor kick. 许多其他表示双刃工具的名词也使用复数形式，如pliers（钳子），forceps（医用镊子），shears（修剪花木的大剪刀），tweezers（镊子），tongs（烧瓶钳）。
Obviously the singular noun glass exists, but when referring to eyewear, you will only hear about glasses; even the fashion world doesn’t seem yet to have started recommending that people wear a chic glass. The same is true of binoculars, spectacles, and goggles.
Looking more broadly in the world of attire, we speak of clothes, but never of a single clothe (a word which exists only as a verb). Cloth exists as a singular noun, but meaning ‘woven or felted fabric, made from wool, cotton, or a similar fibre’, rather than ‘a garment’. This was not always the case. In the late 14th century, cloth could be used to refer to a single garment, robe, or coat; this use is found in Piers Plowman, Wycliffe’s translation of the Psalms, and the works of Chaucer. 但情况并非总是如此。在14世纪末期，cloth意为一件衣服、长袍或大衣。这种用法可以在《农夫皮尔斯》、威克利夫的译作《诗篇》以及乔叟的作品中看到。
Although the verb thank is common, especially in the exclamation thank you, you wouldn’t give somebody a single thank – unless you happened to be in Ancient Britain and using the Old English thanc, from which the modern word stemmed. Again, the singular was dropped eventually – although examples are found as late as the 19th century.
Although there is also the option of folks (often seen in old folks’ home, for instance), folk is also itself exclusively a plural: in current English, you cannot have one folk. The word dates back to Old English, and is of Germanic origin.
You can make amends but you cannot make an amend; the latter now exists only as a verb. The noun amends comes from the Old French amendes meaning ‘penalties, fine’; in Old French, it was the plural of amende, but only the plural found its way into English.
Pluralia tantum don’t necessarily end in ‘s’, of course, particularly if they have kept their plural formation from another or an earlier language. Marginalia – ‘notes written in the margins of a text’ – comes from Latin, which also had the singular marginalis. The singular did not make its way into English, however, and thus marginalia joins the ranks of pluralia tantum. 经常以复数形式出现的名词并不代表着它们一定会以-s结尾，尤其是当它们的复数形式是源于外来语或者早期语言时。Marginalia意为“文章空白处所做的注释”，源自拉丁语。它的单数形式为marginalis，却并没有引入到英语中去。但是，marginalia则成为经常以复数形式出现的名词。 一起的拉丁引进词还有juvenilia（青少年创作的作品）和literati（对文学感兴趣的受过良好教育的人）。还有一些类似的词语（如paraphernalia{私人物品} 和regalia{特别物品}），虽是单数形式，却表复数意思。
Pluralia tantum needn’t be tangible objects; shenanigans is commonly held to be an example. The word is of uncertain origin, and means ‘secret or dishonest activity or manoeuvring’ or ‘silly or high-spirited behaviour; mischief’. The singular shenanigan is not in common use, and is not included in OxfordDictionaries.com, but the history of shenanigans actually follows the same pattern as clothes, albeit over a shorter period. The earliest known example of the word is from an 1855 article in Town Talk: ‘Are you quite sure? No shenanigan?’. This usage is found in various sources, including the letters of Mark Twain, throughout the late-19th and early-20th centuries; in recent years, it has fallen out of use almost completely. 最早发现这个单词是在1855年，刊登在Town Talk上的一篇文章中：”Are you quite sure? No shenanigan?”后来这个用法被普遍采用，包括19世纪末20世纪初的马克·吐温的信件中。然而近年来，人们已经不怎么使用了。
The singular loggerhead exists in reference to a variety of turtle and a variety of shrike, and is an archaic term meaning ‘a foolish person’, but is nowadays most commonly met in the phrase at loggerheads. This means ‘in violent dispute or disagreement’, and is never found as at loggerhead. It has been suggested that this use of loggerheads relates to a late 17th-century sense of loggerhead meaning ‘long-handled iron instrument for heating liquids and tar’, when wielded as a weapon.
Speaking of phrases, you’re unlikely to hear about cahoots outside of the informal phrase in cahoots (‘colluding or conspiring together secretly’), and you won’t discover a single cahoot in current English, although the word was once used that way. The etymology is uncertain, but a link has been suggested with the French cahute, meaning ‘hut, shack’.
Probably from the Irish smidirín, smithereens means ‘small pieces’ (almost invariably in the context of destruction; the table got smashed to smithereens, for example). Smithers is also used, but you will not find smither or smithereen in the singular – although the transitive verb smithereen (‘to smash or blow up into tiny fragments’) is included in the OED. 这些永远复数的单词你都记住了吗？ 榜单里没有的复数名词也欢迎留言分享，祝大家学得开心。 本周热文 （点击下面文字，即可查看） 编辑：王梦树、然少 |
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