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In the Oxford dictionary website, the following example for scissors is given:

A small suture scissors was used to "fish" for the deeply embedded hair.

However I find weird that it treats scissors as singular, being a plural noun. Shouldn't it be Small suture scissors were used...?

Why is it correct to treat scissors as singular in that case (assuming it's indeed correct)?

Please note that I'm only interested in the use of the noun scissors, the ones that are used to cut, not any other meaning of the word.

Justin
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Diego Jancic
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    Do you have the same struggle with "foreceps"? Would it bug you if I said "hand me a small foreceps"? I think this is pretty common in medical jargon. It seems to me that it's related to the idea that in that field there is more than one type of scissors or foreceps. – Dan Bron Jul 15 '17 at 23:17
  • Hi @DanBron. Non-native speaker here. But even if there are more than one type of scissors, shouldn't it be Small ___ scissors were used...? Not sure they put as singular. – Diego Jancic Jul 15 '17 at 23:21
  • It certainly can be and most frequently is used that way. You were asking what licensed it being used the "singular" way, in this context. I don't know the answer that question except to tell you (a) it's not wrong, and in many contexts, especially medical, idiomatic and (b) my intuition tells me the licensing has something to do with there being more than one type of scissors. – Dan Bron Jul 15 '17 at 23:23
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    It is interesting that Oxford says scissors is a plural noun and then uses the word as a singular. Even where it can be singular (like Oxford 1.2), it's an ordinary singular noun. I would go so far as to say that there is no example in standard English of a plural noun being treated as singular in this way, other than by being characterised as a pair of something. If this is medical jargon, then it should really be marked as such in the dictionary. – Andrew Leach Jul 15 '17 at 23:24
  • In my own personal idiolect, one must say that a pair of scissors is sitting on the table if you want something singular. Otherwise you say that these scissors are too old for just one pair of them. @DanBron But forceps is already singular; if you want plural, one uses forcipes. :) There's no such word as *forcep. – tchrist Jul 15 '17 at 23:32
  • @tchrist it's not a duplicate of that other question. I'm asking about a specific example given in a dictionary. I'm not asking if or why it's plural, but about something that might be an exception to the rule. My question is more specific than the other one. I would appreciate if you can unmark it as duplicate. – Diego Jancic Jul 15 '17 at 23:42
  • @DiegoJancic Ok. It's certainly related. – tchrist Jul 15 '17 at 23:42
  • Hmmnn..."Small suture scirrors" could refer to singular, or plural, no? So adding "a" would remove all doubt? – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Jul 15 '17 at 23:45
  • @tchrist related doesn't mean duplicated. The other doesn't answer my question. Thanks for unmarking it as duplicate. – Diego Jancic Jul 15 '17 at 23:45
  • @Cascabel, sorry don't understand what you mean. Can you explain? Thanks! – Diego Jancic Jul 15 '17 at 23:46
  • If I say "Small suture scirrors were used", it is possible that multiple pairs of scissors of different small sizes were employed. But if I say "a small suture scissors was used", it would imply singular (one pair) . However, in the medical field, suture scissors are more specific in nomenclature. I think the question is moot. – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Jul 15 '17 at 23:54
  • Saying "Small suture scissors are used" would surely be widely understood as meaning one pair of scissors. If multiple pairs are used then you would expect the speaker to say 'Several small suture scissors...'. To my (unspecialist, UK) ears the OP with its indefinite article - "*A small suture scissors was used...*" sounds pedantic. – Dan Jul 16 '17 at 00:14
  • I would also suggest along with the many great comments about the tenses of "to be" (past tense was and were) that some of it is colloquial and you will need to learn with use. Certain phrases will not be picked on even when using "was" when "were" is "correct" (or vice versa). But you won't know some of these things until you have become an expert in the vernacular and colloquial use of English. A good example? The answer posted by Raj. It has down votes but the reality is most speakers would not hound you for either usage (in this case). Others would would be more flagrant possibly. – Kace36 Jul 16 '17 at 00:18
  • @Kace36 Please, but this is not actually contributing. It is more like nit-picking. – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_ Jul 16 '17 at 00:23
  • Hey guys, not sure if you are calling me "pedantic" or what, not sure I follow all your comments. I appreciate your contributions, as a non-native speaker I wonder why it was used like that. I believe it's a fare question as I started looking for it in a dictionary. It might be just the dict is wrong or something. I appreciate all your medical related explanations as they seem to be the only reasonable explanation for that. – Diego Jancic Jul 16 '17 at 00:34
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    @tchrist it is unfortunate that the accepted answer at the question you (or whoever) proposed as a duplicate begins with the incorrect statement "these words only have a plural form and require the verb in the plural." – Arm the good guys in America Jul 16 '17 at 00:36
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    @DiegoJancic - My comment is describing the usage in your example as pedantic! It seems that 'a scissors' does have accepted modern usage, but only in specialist (medical) circles. – Dan Jul 16 '17 at 00:45
  • @Cascabel I don't follow you. Are you saying I was being negative? I didnt consider it a nitpicking type of comment. I thought it was helpful because, seriously, it doesn't really matter if you use 'was or were' in that sentence. Maybe nitpicking was just bad word choice? Are you saying you wanted a less vague suggestion? Unfortunately that's one of the beauties, or dangers, depending on your view, of English. The rules vary.... alot. And some stuff you just have to learn by doing. But in that sentence I would call it being pedantic, or captious, to criticize. Just saying /shrug – Kace36 Jul 16 '17 at 02:41
  • Agree that "scissors" is a plural noun used with a plural verb. However, the word "pair" is singular. So when you say "a pair of scissors", shouldn't the verb be singular? – Tom Driver Jun 24 '22 at 13:19

3 Answers3

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You can use scissors with a singular verb anytime you want. However, to prevent getting into arguments, you may wish to limit this usage to medical scissors. Or you can say 'if a scissors was good enough for Emily Brontë,
then it's good enough for me'.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that using scissors with plural concord is "the usual form." However the same dictionary notes that scissors is also used with singular concord and does not describe this as dialectal or anything that might be considered non-standard. And examples range from 1565 to 2001, including:

1565 T. Cooper Thesaurus at Forfex A sisers, or sheares.

1847 E. Brontë Wuthering Heights I. ix. 164 Now, don't you think the lad would be handsomer cropped?.. Get me a scissors.

1909 Ophthalmol. 5 43 The scissors is inserted into the duct and the cut made as low down as possible.

You might notice this last usage is from the field of ophthalmology.

Google Books provides plenty of other examples of scissors being used with singular concord, including several instances in the medical field. For example:

With a scissors the surgical fascia is incised for 2-3 cm above the suprasternal notch, ...

and

With a scissors, divide the slip of the diaphragm that attaches to the posterior surface of the xiphoid, ...

From Manual of Pulmonary Surgery (Comprehensive Manuals of Surgical Specialties) by by E.W. Humphrey and D.L. McKeown (2012).

As in your example from the Oxford Dictionary online (borrowed from American Family Physician (link)) there are many uses of singular concord with regard to "medical scissors," but contemporary usage is not limited to this. But singular concord remains the "unusual form" (my quotes).

Community
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Arm the good guys in America
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    I think that we're witnessing the evolution of a word. Saying "A pair of scissors" to refer to a single object seems silly, and there's no such thing as "A scissor". It would therefore be logical to start to refer to the object as "A scissors" or "A scissor", and it may be the case that the medical profession is leading the way. In surgery, time is often tight and clear, quick communication may literally be a matter of life or death, so it's perhaps not surprising that they are leading the way on this matter. – Max Williams Jul 27 '17 at 08:12
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    There are instances of 'a scissor', including this one among others. And some of the uses of 'a scissors' date back to 100 or more years ago, so I don't know about evolution of the word. @MaxWilliams – Arm the good guys in America Jul 30 '17 at 11:07
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    @MaxWilliams that's what happened to "a pair of compasses," which became "a compass" over time. – Esther Jun 24 '22 at 13:28
  • Could it be that 'a pair of...' satisfied a need some people felt for a word that sounds plural (even though there is no such thing as 'a' scissor) to be clearly, if nonsensically, plural? – Dan Jun 25 '22 at 12:46
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According to the OED, scissors has a long history of use with a singular concordance (see examples below). Although the New English Dictionary (1910) - the original title of the Oxford English Dictionary - marks this sense as erroneous.

1565 T. Cooper Thesaurus at Forfex A sisers, or sheares.

1847 E. Brontë Wuthering Heights I. ix. 164 Now, don't you think the lad would be handsomer cropped?.. Get me a scissors.

2001 Independent 27 Dec. 12/4 Introduce the point of a scissors into the soft part.

(What a word! So many ways to spell it, according to the OED including cizers, cissors, chizors, shizzors, scithers, scidders and (my favourite) sizzers (Daniel Defoe, 1719).)

Justin
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Dan
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-1

You're right, the sentence contains a plural form of the noun, so it should read as:

Suture scissors were used

You may modify the phrase to a singular form:

A pair of suture scissors was used

Dog Lover
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Raj Padmanabhan
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