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,”—­“By those means,” with reference to more than one.  Dr. Johnson says the use of means for mean is not very grammatical; and, among his examples for the true use of the word, he has the following:  “Pamela’s noble heart would needs gratefully make known the valiant mean of her safety.”—­Sidney. “Their virtuous conversation was a mean to work the heathens’ conversion.”—­Hooker. “Whether his wits should by that mean have been taken from him.”—­Id. “I’ll devise a mean to draw the Moor out of the way.”—­Shak. “No place will please me so, no mean of death.”—­Id. “Nature is made better by no mean, but nature makes that mean.”—­Id. Dr. Lowth also questioned the propriety of construing means as singular, and referred to these same authors as authorities for preferring the regular form.  Buchanan insists that means is right in the plural only; and that, “The singular should be used as perfectly analogous; by this mean, by that mean.”—­English Syntax, p. 103.  Lord Kames, likewise, appears by his practice to have been of the same opinion:  “Of this the child must be sensible intuitively, for it has no other mean of knowledge.”—­Elements