Assume v. Presume

Surely there is no plural of fog at all? c.f. water, air, flour etc.
There is taking the waters, and airs and graces.
Flours is often used as a contraction of 'types of flour' (my supermarket has many different flours on the shelves) ... would that strictly be a plural or an apostrophe job?
 
Flours is often used as a contraction of 'types of flour' (my supermarket has many different flours on the shelves) ... would that strictly be a plural or an apostrophe job?
That's not a plural or an apostrophe job. Flower Flour is a fine dust that comes in packets and you can have multiple packets of flour, but to try to pluralise a bunch of dust is silly.
Gas - gasses. Does not pluralise gas, but describes different types of gas.
Taking the waters and airs and graces are both nonsense (linguistically) phrases.
You could apostrophise it as in "the flower's flour's bag" as it is now referring to the bag that belongs to the [s[flower[/s] flour. (but also a bit silly)
 
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That's not a plural or an apostrophe job. Flower is a fine dust that comes in packets
You could apostrophise it as in "the flower's bag" as it is now referring to the bag that belongs to the flower. (but also a bit silly)

Flower?
 
I suppose you will be telling me that sheeps and fishes are the plurals of sheep and fish.

OOPS. Flowers grow in the garden. It's flour that Dusty Miller makes and comes in bags isn't it. :oops:
 
Sheeps - No -Why not?
So what is the singular of sheep?
Susie Dent was using "sheeps" on her podcast earlier in the year, so that leads me to believe it might have a place...

I also learned today about the comma in "God rest ye merry, gentlemen".. live and learn!
 
Why is it ambiguous? Surely "God" is the subject, "rest|" is the verb and the archaic you "ye merry gentlemen" is the object.
But with the comma present the line does not scan with the music.
Can someone really "rest merry"?
 
Oh yes. Don't forget it was written in Middle English.

The ambiguity I was talking about (without any comma) is whether to assume a comma after "ye" (which is what people tend to assume) or after the "merry" (which changes the meaning considerably).
 
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