Singular or plural

news

Al­though the equiv­a­lent ex­pres­sion in many lan­guages would be in the plural, “news” is a sin­gu­lar noun, so you would say:

The news is being broadcast by all major TV stations. (correct)

The news are being broadcast by all major TV stations. (wrong)

Oddly enough, “news” is un­count­able, which means that not only is it fol­lowed by a sin­gu­lar verb, but you also can­not say “a news”:

I’ve got good news. (correct)

I’ve got a good news. (wrong)

lens

Un­like “news”, “lens” is count­able, so you can try to re­mem­ber that if there can be “two lenses”, there must also be “one lens”:

His new lens is big. (correct)

His new lens are big. (wrong)

series

To make things even more con­fus­ing, the plural of “se­ries” is also se­ries. You should there­fore use a sin­gu­lar verb if you speak about one par­tic­u­lar se­ries, e.g. “my favourite TV se­ries has been can­celled”, and a plural verb if you speak about sev­eral se­ries at a time, e.g. “all the se­ries of the Un­known Chan­nel are good”.

means

Sim­i­larly to “se­ries”, “means” is al­ready both the sin­gu­lar and the plural form. For ex­am­ple, “rail­way is a means [sin­gu­lar] of trans­porta­tion, but there are also sev­eral other good means [plural] of trans­porta­tion.

bellows

An in­stru­ment used for blow­ing air. Like “se­ries”, the plural of “bel­lows” is also “bel­lows”, so you have to use a sin­gu­lar verb when speak­ing about one bel­lows and a plural verb when speak­ing about more than one.

measles

Measles is a dis­ease, and as you have prob­a­bly no­ticed from the pre­vi­ous sen­tence, the word is in the sin­gu­lar:

Measles is especially common among children. (correct)

Measles are especially common among children. (wrong)

Quite nat­u­rally, it is un­count­able, i.e. you can­not have “two measles”.

Plural nouns that learners think are singular

In ad­di­tion to the words above, there are a few words which only have a plural form and might be con­fus­ing for some learn­ers if the equiv­a­lent ex­pres­sion in their mother tongue is in the sin­gu­lar:

jeans, tights, trousers, pants

All this hosiery is used only in the plural (usu­ally be­cause they come in pairs (for both legs) and the sin­gu­lar form has died out):

Her new jeans/tights/trousers/pants are black. (correct)

Her new jeans/tights/trousers/pants is black. (wrong)

tongs

Not to be con­fused with “thongs”, the plural of “thong” which is a type of un­der­wear, “tongs” are the same case as above:

The tongs are not big enough. (correct)

The tongs is not big enough. (wrong)