The words cattle, clothes, pants, pliers, scissors, shorts, smithereens, and trousers are all plural but have no singular form.
Two special groups of nouns are usually plural: nouns referring to clothes and some other things that people wear, and nouns referring to tools and some other things that people use.
This is because some clothes and tools, such as trousers and scissors, are made up of two similar parts.
- She wore brown trousers and a green sweater.
- He took off his glasses.
- ... using the pliers from the toolbox.
When you want to refer to these items in general, or to an unspecified number of them, you use the plural form with no determiner.
- Never poke scissors into a light bulb socket
- The man was watching the train through binoculars.
Here is a list of some plural nouns that refer to clothes and other things that people wear:
braces, briefs, glasses, jeans, knickers, leggings, overalls, panties, pants, pyjamas, shorts, specs, spectacles, sunglasses, tights, trousers, underpants
Here is a list of plural nouns that refer to tools and other things that people use:
binoculars, clippers, compasses, dividers, nutcrackers, pincers, pliers, scales, scissors, shears, tongs, tweezers
When you want to refer to a single piece of clothing or a single tool, you use some or a pair of in front of the noun. You refer to more than one item by using a number or a quantity expression with pairs of.
- I got some scissors out of the kitchen drawer.
- I went out to buy a pair of scissors.
- Mike was wearing a pair of old blue trousers.
- Sally has only two pairs of jeans.
You can also use a pair of when you are talking about things such as gloves, shoes, and socks that typically occur in twos.
- I bought a pair of new gloves.
A possessive determiner such as my can be used instead of a.
- He is wearing his favourite pair of shoes.
When you use a pair of with a noun in the plural form, the verb is singular if it is in the same clause. If the verb is in a following relative clause, it is usually plural.
It is likely that new pair of shoes brings more happiness to a child than a new car brings to a grown-up.
I always wear a pair of long pants underneath, or a pair of pyjamas is just as good.
