words not plural ending in s

chess, miss...

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boss, toss, cross, moss, joss, tis, vis a vis, ms, yes, mass, miss, ass, pass, cuss,

us muss, fuss, glass, abyss

trousers (as well as pants, jeans, shorts, etc.) and scissors partake of plurality, in that they are nouns for a singular item which has two prominent parts.

Agreed. So now why do we say a "pant top"/ "trouser top", or "jean skirt" but no form of "lens" (e.g. lens cap) and as far as I can tell, "scissors" without an "s"?

Actually, it's jeans skirt. And there's no trouser top or pant top, but you can have pant leg and trouser leg, because those refer to the singular items for which pants and trousers are plural.

Scissors is always not with an s at the end. There's no such thing as a scissor (it would be a blade with a handle, if anything, or half a pair of scissors), but there is such a thing as a scissor kick (also called a scissors kick), which is when you jump up and move your legs like scissors, but only one of your feet meets the target (hence, scissor and not scissors). But these are rare exceptions.

Note: the reason it's scissor kick is because adjectives are supposed to be singular (e.g. 2-car garage, not 2-cars garage).

guess, tress, less, mess, confess, brass, mass, bass, cuss, buss, truss, has, bas, sass, lass, crass, unless, countess, buttress, dress, undress, bless, egress, grass, harass, jackass, cuirass, fuss, hiss, kiss, class, glass, morass, bliss, plus,

crisis, thesis, amanuensis, witness, likeness, all "nesses," virus, summons, all "itis" and "osis" words, series, gneiss, status.

genius, opus

From Jespah: "Actually, it's jeans skirt. And there's no trouser top or pant top, but you can have pant leg and trouser leg, because those refer to the singular items for which pants and trousers are plural. "

Just went by Lord & Taylor's teen department yesterday and saw printed signs indicating "jean skirts" section and "summer pant tops on sale" in the women's . . .

It just means that at Lord & Taylor they don't know proper English.

A department store is no argument of authority.

In the jean example they are using it to describe the material. Like "corduroy skirts" (odd!).

pancreas
alias
fatass
bolas
Christmas

The fashion biz has its own, bizarre approach to language. But I do believe that Jespah is right and L&T is wrong.

So, where is this Lord & Taylor and are the jeans skirts on sale? :-D

Actually, I think that error comes from dictation. Someone says, "Print up a bunch of signs touting our jeans skirts." and to the person being given the request it sounds like "Print up a bunch of signs touting our jean skirts." Hence the error (I've seen a number of these types of errors in newspapers, where names like Kevin Nash are printed as Kevin Ash, probably because the sound is the same to the typist).

Oh, and "jean" isn't the material - denim is. These should be called "denim" skirts (or heavy cotton skirts, I suppose), when you get right down to it.

Now, where was that sale again? :-D

Link to Lord & Taylor

Oh, I LOVE that store! Maybe I will have a chance to check out the sales when I go to NY this summer!

jean IS a material and it is slightly different from denim which is less coarse.

Craven, I so did not believe you (as they say on "Friends") that I went and looked it up in the good book, which gave

Jeans, from jean 'twilled cotton cloth' from Middle English, attributive use of Jene from Old French Janne, from medieval Latin Janua 'Genoa'.

So, I respectfully submit that jean no longer has the meaning you attribute to it, no way, Jose.