43. Material nouns and abstract nouns are always singular. When such words take a plural ending, they lose their identity, and go over to other classes (Secs. 15 and 17).
44. Proper nouns are regularly singular, but may be made plural when we wish to speak of several persons or things bearing the same name; e.g., the Washingtons, the Americas.
45. Some words are usually singular, though they are plural in form. Examples of these are, optics, economics, physics, mathematics, politics, and many branches of learning; also news, pains (care), molasses, summons, means: as,—
Politics, in its widest extent, is both the science and the art of government.—Century Dictionary.
So live, that when thy summons comes, etc.—Bryant.
It served simply as a means of sight.—Prof. Dana.
Means plural.
Two words, means and politics, may be plural in their construction with verbs and adjectives:—
Words, by strongly conveying the passions, by those means which we have already mentioned, fully compensate for their weakness in other respects.—Burke.