Nouns that are always singular

  1. When something usually comes in pairs for whatever - usually functional - reason, Hungarian implies this information and treats two objects forming the noun as the whole.
    When the context demands otherwise (eg. animals having more than two eyes, or a lab inventory of eyes), they behave like normal, countable nouns. An eight-eyed spider has no half eyes, while humans may (at least in Hungarian :-) ).
    NB. eyes don't come in pairs ("egy pár szem" - that's wrong), while gloves, shoes or socks do. I'd guess the reason for this is that eyes are a part of the human body, since the eye, in this regard, behaves exactly the same as most paired organs. A one-leg stand is fél lábon állás in Hungarian (standing on half a leg), utilizing only one hand is similarly fél kézzel (with half a hand). Deafness of one ear is being deaf on half ear (or, more precisely, having hearing on half an ear). Neither of these are referred to a pair of hands, legs, ears etc.
  2. 'Lots of pairs of shoes' would be natural. Or simply 'lots of shoes', implying they come in pairs.
  3. 'Half pair of shoes', or 'the left/right shoe'.
/r/hungarian Thread