After numerals, the words couple, pair, dozen, score, hundred, thousand, and a few others, need not take the plural form: thus, custom first, and finally grammar, have sanctioned such uses as, “three pair of shoes,” “nine dozen bushels,” “four couple of students;” also, “forty sail of vessels,” “seventy head of cattle.”
The article (a or an) renders an important service in such expressions as, “A few followed their leader throughout the long struggle.” To say, “Few followed him,” would imply, unlike the former phrase, that he was almost deserted.
“A black and a white horse,” suggests the idea of two horses; while “a black and white horse,” refers to but one—as if written “a black-and-white horse.”
“The red and white dahlias were most admired,” properly means the dahlias in which both these colors were blended. “The red and the white dahlias,” implies two species.
The grammatical number of a verb should agree with that of its subject, and not of its predicate. Thus, the sentences, “Death is the wages of sin,” and “The wages of sin are death,” are properly written.
In changing from a past tense to the present, when the same nominative remains, the form of the verb should continue unaltered. Thus, instead of saying “He was traveling and travels,” say “He was traveling and is traveling.”
When a verb has both a singular and a plural nominative, separated by or, its number agrees with that of the nearer: as, “the cup or his billiards were his ruin;” or, “his billiards or the cup was his ruin.”
Custom—which, when crystallized, becomes grammar—allows expressions like “The linen tears,” and “The meadow plows well,” although they should not be frequently employed, and should be more seldom coined.
A fruitful source of mistakes in language, is in the linking together of two or more inappropriate tenses, or in the misuse of one. Many among the learned and refined commit blunders of these kinds. A few corrected examples of such are here given:
“His text was, that God was love;” the sentence should be written, “His text was, that God is love.”