“These ben generally the almesses and workes of charity.”—Ibid.
Johnson says this word has no singular. It was, in truth, a first a noun singular, and afterwards, by contraction, receiving a plural form, it came to be considered by some as a noun plural. Johnson would have had equal, nay, perhaps, better authority for saying that this word has no plural. Our translators of the Bible seem to have considered it as singular. “To ask an alms,” “to give much alms,” and other similar phraseologies, occur in Scripture. Nay, Johnson himself has cited two authorities, in which the indefinite article is prefixed to it.
... “My arm’d knees,
Which bow’d but in my stirrup, bend like his
That hath received an alms.”—Shakspeare.
“The poor beggar hath a just demand of an alms from the rich man.”—Swift.
Lowth objected to the phraseology a means, for this reason, that means, being a plural noun, cannot admit the indefinite article, or name of unity. The objection would be conclusive, if the expressions this means, that means, did not oppose the learned author’s opinion, that means is a noun plural. To the substantive alms, as represented by Johnson to have no singular, the objection is applicable.
Thanks is considered to be a plural noun, though denoting only one expression of gratitude. It occurs in Scripture as a substantive singular. “What thank have ye?”
It has been observed, that many of those words which have no singular denote things consisting of two parts, and therefore have a plural termination. Hence the word pair is used with many of them, as, “a pair of bellows, a pair of scissors, a pair of colours, a pair of drawers.”