_Laches_, from the French _lachesse_, is still retained in the law stile; but custom has abbreviated the word into _lache_, a single syllable. _Amends_ may properly be considered as in the singular number, and so it is used by one of our best writers. "They must needs think that this honor to him, when dead, was but _a_ necessary _amends_ for the injury which they had done him, when living."----Middleton's L. of Cic. vol. 3. p. 131. The idea here conveyed by _amends_ is as single as that expressed by _compensation_. The word has no change of termination, and may be considered as singular or plural, at the choice of the writer. _Wages_ is a word of the same kind. _Victuals_ is derived from the old French _vitaille_,[97] and was formerly used in the singular form, _victual_. But the latter is now wholly disused, and _victuals_ generally used with a singular verb and pronoun. So Swift uses the word. "We had such very fine _victuals_ that I could not eat _it_."[98] The editor of his works remarks, _that here is false concord_; but I believe Swift has followed the general practice of the English. The word seems to have lost the plurality of ideas, annexed to many different articles included in the term, and to have assumed the general meaning of the word _food_, which does not admit of the plural. The word _odds_ seems to be of the same kind. We sometimes find a plural verb united to it, as in Pope's translation of Homer: "On valor's side the _odds_ of combat _lie_, The brave live glorious, or lamented die." Iliad, b. 15. l. 670. But in common practice _odds_ is considered as in the singular number. We always say, "What _is_ the _odds_;" and I should rank this among the words, which, altho they have the termination of regular plurals, more properly belong to the singular number. The word _gallows_ is evidently of this class. "Let _a gallows_ be made," say the translators of the Bible, with perfect propriety. Indeed I cannot conceive how any man who has read English authors, can consider this word as in the plural. _Bellows_, _tongs_, _sheers_, _scissors_, _snuffers_, _pincers_, have no change of termination, and it is the practice to prefix to them the word _pair_. Yet notwithstanding these articles are composed of two principal parts, both are necessary to form a single indivisible instrument, and the names might have been considered as nouns in the singular.[99] _Pair_ is more properly applied to two separate articles of the same kind, and used together; a _pair of shoes_, or _gloves_. Custom, however, has sanctioned the use of it before the words just enumerated, and therefore a pair of tongs, &c. must be admitted as good English.[100] There are many other words in our language which have the plural termination; as _billiards_, _ethics_, _metaphysics_, _mathematics_, _measles_, _hysterics_, and many others; which properly belong to the singular number. _Ethics is a science_, is better English than _ethics are_.