Are there one or more words that take only a singular form? In a Cambridge dictionary, it distinguishes a singular form from a countable form, but, in an Oxford dictionary, it only says the word is uncountable or countable.
Does English have any singularia tantum besides mass nouns? and  are, respectively, nouns that have only a singular form and nouns that have only a plural form.  In English, we have a handful of pluralia tantum that are mass nouns which take the plural form (e.g. "riches" and "remains"), a whole load of pluralia tantum that refer to things that come in pairs (e.g. "trousers", "sunglasses", "knickers", or "scissors"), and at least one plurale tantum that fits into neither of the above categories ("clothes", meaning multiple items of clothing - it's clear what the hypothetical singular "clothe" would mean, yet it mysteriously isn't a word). Singularia tantum, on the other hand, seem less varied. As far as I can tell, they are all  - things like "information", "milk", and "racism".  One can imagine there being a singulare tantum that is not a mass noun. For example, we can imagine an alternate universe in which it is still correct English to talk about "a dog", but talking about "dogs" in the plural is incorrect and funny in the same way that it is incorrect and funny to talk about a "scissor". It might seem unintuitive to think that such a noun even could exist - surely, if it is not a mass noun, then people would just pluralise it with an "s" on the end like most other words? But the converse argument could just as well be made about countable pluralia tantum, and I still cannot go to a shop and buy a "clothe". Hence my question: do we have any such countable singularia tantum in the language? Have we in the past?
geometry package - paperwidth and paperheight aren't accurate recognize this simple example:  \documentclass[]{article} \usepackage[paperwidth=612.0pt, paperheight=792.0pt]{geometry}  \begin{document} Hello World \end{document}   I compiled it with pdflatex. Additionally I wrote this small Java-Programm (using the iText library):  PdfReader reader = new PdfReader("example.pdf"); Rectangle psize = reader.getPageSize(1); System.out.println(psize.getHeight()); System.out.println(psize.getWidth());   The result:  Height: 789.041 Width: 609.714   Why is the paperwidth and paperheight different to the tex? Programming language books explain that value types are created on the stack, and reference types are created on the heap, without explaining what these two things are. I haven't read a clear explanation of this.  I understand what a stack is. But,    Where and what are they (physically in a real computer's memory)? To what extent are they controlled by the OS or language run-time? What is their scope? What determines the size of each of them? What makes one faster? Reprojected MODIS NDVI has range from -32768 to 32767, expected -1 to 1 Scale Image Using PHP and Maintaining Aspect Ratio makefiles CFLAGS In the process of learning tinyos I have discovered that I am totally clueless about makefiles.  There are many optional compile time features that can be used by way of declaring preprocessor variables.  To use them you have to do things like:  CFLAGS="-DPACKET_LINK"        this enables a certain feature.  and    CFLAGS="-DPACKET_LINK" "-DLOW_POWER" enables two features.  Can someone dissect these lines for me and tell me whats going on? Not in terms of tinyos, but in terms of makefiles! Where does the "apply bonuses and penalties in the most beneficial order" rule come from, if it exists? I have seen quoted several places on the internet a rule that one can apply bonuses and penalties in the most beneficial order.  An example I come across frequently (as a druid) is the combination of Natural Bond and . Natural Bond increases your effective druid level for determining the stats of animal companions but cannot increase it beyond your character level. Choosing an alternative animal companion lowers your effective druid level for determining the same stats. The "most beneficial order" rule is used to justify applying the level penalty before the natural bond bonus in order to get around the character level cap on natural bond.  Does this rule actually exist? If so, where does this rule originate? I would like to be able to cite a reliable source for my GM. I want to make a persistent live Ubuntu USB drive with more than 4GB of storage.   I know there is an option of installing directly on the drive but I don't want to do this as it will restrict the drive from working on different computers.   One option is to make an additional partition with extra space but if I do this how can I get newly installed software to be stored on this partition? I am trying to understand how to find the orthogonal complement of a subspace $M$ of a vector space $V$.   From my understanding, $M^\perp$ is also a subspace of $V$ where all its vectors are perpendicular (orthogonal) to the columns of $M$, which would mean that the dot product of those vectors with each column of $M$ is $0$.  However, how do I find the $M^\perp$ subspace, when $M = \{ \vec{x} \in \mathbb{R}:  2x_2 + 3x_1 = 0\}$? In general, if there's a general approach, how does one attempt to find $M^\perp$ of an arbitrary $M$?  From my understanding, in this case, $M$ is the set of vectors in a plane that satisfy that equation, where $x_1$ and $x_2$ should respectively be the first and second components of the vector $\vec{x}$. Logistic regression with binary dependent and independent variables Let $K$ be a field and $f(x)\in K[x]$. Prove that $K[x]/(f(x))$ is a field if and only if $f(x)$ is irreducible in $K[x]$. Let $K$ be a field and $f(x)\in K[x]$. Prove that $K[x]/(f(x))$ is a field if and only if $f(x)$ is irreducible in $K[x]$.   How to prove? I really have no idea... Thank you a lot. Why upload to academic preprint sites like arXiv? The recent question  made me realize that I don't have any understanding of why one would upload to a preprint site.  (I don't work in a field where they seem to be common.)  Why would one be concerned about getting a manuscript on arXiv, if it's already under review with a journal?   Is it because of the long publishing timeline of journals?  (That could explain why computer science &mdash; which publishes much more in conferences &mdash; doesn't seem to do much with them.) I'm testing something in Oracle and populated a table with some sample data, but in the process I accidentally loaded duplicate records, so now I can't create a primary key using some of the columns.  How can I delete all duplicate rows and leave only one of them? If $f$ is entire and $|f|\geq 1$, then show $f$ is constant. Can anyone recommend a simple API that will allow me to use read a CSV input file, do some simple transformations, and then write it.  A quick google has found  which looks promising.  I just wanted to check what others are using before I couple myself to this API. Do you pluralize the singular possessions of / items or people associated with individual members of a plural group? The tablet functionality stops working after I wake my Lenovo Tablet from sleep mode (closing &amp; opening lit). The error message is "Tablet Serial Wacom Tablet (Lenovo X201) removed" (screenshot: ). In the system settings under input devices it states that "No tablet device is detected". Only a restart helps and the touch screen works again.  This error appeared only after upgrading from Kubuntu 12.04 to 14.04. In 12.04 the same error message appeared after waking from sleep mode, but then another followed that the tablet was activated again and it worked properly. Any ideas how this could be fixed? What is a good method for short text clustering? I am working on a text clustering problem. The data contains several sentences. Is there a good algorithm which reaches high accuracy on short text?  Can you provide good references?   Algorithms such as KMeans, spectral clustering does not work well for this problem. On the commutative property of multiplication (domain of integers, possibly reals) $ab = ba$  This is, inherently, true. Some texts drop it like an axiom without any justification. But I'm a bit curious where it stems from or basically why/how it works. If anyone could enlighten me a bit further, I'd be most grateful. Peano axioms? From set theory? Help.  What bugs me with this definition is it's real world "application":  Let's say I have a power output of 5 W ( $kg\cdot m^2 \cdot s^{-3}$) and I want 30% of that power output (to have some units and natural context).  Naturally, 30% is 30 1/100 (% is the unit). For simplicity, let's express that as:  $30$%$ = 30/100 = 3/10 = 3d$ where $d = 1/10$, a simpler unit (because %W would look... Wrong?).  So 30% of power is then $5 W \cdot 3d$, and we can force it to "make sense" if we associate d with W or basically scale the unit of power by d (which is intuitively understood as being 10 times smaller then the output of 1 W) $dW$. And we want to scale these 5 units of $dW$ three times.  $5 dW \cdot 3$  But the commutative property says it is the same as scaling 3 units of $dW$ 5 times or:  $3 dW \cdot 5$  And the result is the same. This is the bit that hurts my head, the fact it is the same. I try to interpret the same as, for example 50 J of work, it's either applying 50 N over 1 m of distance or 1 N over 50 m of distance.    Down here is additional stuff I think I have (you don't have to read it if you know how to answer immediately). I don't claim it's correct, if anyone parses this information, feel free to correct me.  $m\sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}{1} = n\sum\limits_{i=1}^{m}{1}$  This is how I've been trying to break it down, as it is repeated addition. It is repeated $n$ times and multiplied by $m$, and reverse on the right side. There is $x = m - n$, so when I multiply $n$ $m$ times, each repeated addition of $n$ lacks exactly $x$ to $m$.  $mn = nm$  $x = m-n$  $m(m-x) = (m-x)m$  $m^2 - mx = m^2 - mx$  $ true $  And yes, sadly, I realise that I am using the very property I'm trying to prove ($xm$ shifted as $mx$ on the right-hand side.)  And it even calls in the distributive property of multiplication over addition which I derive (for myself, informally) from the very nature of multiplication and the way we "process" numbers:  For example, number $55$ times $2$  $55 = 5 \cdot 10^1 + 5 \cdot 10^0 = 5 \cdot 10 + 5 \cdot 1$  $(5 \cdot 10 + 5 \cdot 1) \cdot 2$  This is the basis of our positional notation which appends digits of varying orders of magnitude or units together in a way it makes "sense". Each one is b times bigger than the one to the right. Basic stuff. It is why I expressed 10 and 1 explicitly, those are what I consider units in this case.  Now, from the definition of multiplication, which is at its heart just repeated addition, it is truly the same if you add together $2$ $50$ times and then again $5$ times or "all at once" (figuratively, we are always doing the former mentally) $2$ $55$ times.  That added together gives 110, which is true.  To me, the distributive property (in case of integer multiplication) is a repercussion of the very definition of multiplication which is repeated addition (evading strict concepts). I am not certain whether this is a good way to look at it. What's the difference between convolution and crosscorrelation? What's the difference between convolution and crosscorrelation? So why do you use '-' for convolution and '+' for crosscorrelation? Why do we need the "time reversal on one of the inputs" when doing convolution? Space between 2 paths in Illustrator