s Dict._ "_News_," says Johnson, "is without the
singular, unless it be considered as singular."--_Dict._ "So _is_ good
_news_ from a far country."--_Prov._, xxv, 25. "Evil _news rides_ fast,
while good _news baits_."--_Milton_. "When Rhea heard _these news_, she
fled."--_Raleigh_. "_News were brought_ to the queen."--_Hume's Hist._, iv,
426. "The _news_ I bring _are_ afflicting, but the consolation with which
_they_ are attended, ought to moderate your grief."--_Gil Blas_, Vol. ii,
p. 20. "Between these two cases there _are_ great _odds_."--_Hooker_.
"Where the _odds is_ considerable."--_Campbell_. "Determining on which side
the _odds lie_."--_Locke_. "The greater _are the odds_ that he mistakes his
author."--_Johnson's Gram. Com._, p. 1. "Though thus _an odds_ unequally
they meet."--_Rowe's Lucan_, B. iv, l. 789. "Preeminent by so _much
odds_."--_Milton_. "To make a _shambles_ of the parliament house."--_Shak_.
"The earth has been, from the beginning, a great Aceldama, _a shambles_ of
blood."--_Christian's Vade-Mecum_, p. 6. "_A shambles_" sounds so
inconsistent, I should rather say, "_A shamble_." Johnson says, the
etymology of the word is _uncertain_; Webster refers it to the Saxon
_scamel_: it means _a butcher's stall, a meat-market_; and there would seem
to be no good reason for the _s_, unless more than one such place is
intended. "Who sells his subjects to the _shambles_ of a foreign
power."--_Pitt_. "A special idea is called by the schools _a
species_."--_Watts_. "He intendeth the care of _species_, or common
natures."--_Brown_. "ALOE, (al~o) _n.; plu._ ALOES."--_Webster's Dict._,
and _Worcester's_. "But it was _aloe_ itself to lose the reward."--
_Tupper's Crock of Gold_, p. 16.

"But high in amphitheatre above,
_His_ arms the everlasting _aloes_ threw."
--_Campbell_, G. of W., ii, 10.

OBS. 33.--There are some nouns, which, though really regular in respect to
possessing the two forms for the two numbers, are not free from
irregularity in the manner of their application. Thus _means_ is the
regular plural of _mean_; and, when the word is put for mediocrity, middle
point, place, or degree, it takes both forms, each in its proper sense; but
when it signifies things instrumental, or that which is used to effect an
object, most writers use _means_ for the singular as well as for the
plural:[156] as, "By _this means_"--"By _those means_," with reference to
one mediating cause; and, "By _these means_