grammatical number - Plural or singular verb for collective term

Should the verb, in the following sentence, be singular or plural?

A series of samples was produced.

In a related question I found a reference. However the text in that reference seems to contradict itself.

Nouns that are “collective” take a singular verb when the group as a whole is meant.

Commonly used collective nouns include “number,” “majority,” “series,” and “variety.”

Note that when collective nouns refer to a singular group as a whole they are often preceded by the word “a”;

Based on these rules, I would expect that, since I am using an indefinite article a series, the singular form of the verb is to be used. However the reference uses plural in an example

A series of western blots were performed to assay protein expression.

Answer

Apparently, there are two ways we could go about/around this issue.

1. As Quantified Collective - treating the collective as the quantifiable:

   
   
   

   
   

   A {number of people} was offended by my opinion.
   A {lot of houses} was burned down.
   A {truckload of potatoes} was delivered.
   Three {truckloads of potatoes} were delivered.

   
   




2. As Quantifying adjective - treating the collective as adjective to quantity the noun:

   
   
   
   

   
   

   {A number of} people were offended by my opinion.
   {A lot of} houses were burned down.
   Not {a few} toes were curmudgeoned by my usage of the word curmudgeon.
   {Few} toes were curmudgeoned by my usage of the word curmudgeon.

   
   

The following makes the issue obvious:

"Lot" being used as quantified collective:

A lot of class-A shares was assigned to me to manage.
One lot of class-A shares was assigned to me to manage.
Three lots of class-B shares were assigned to me.

"Lot" being used as quantifying adjective:

{A lot of} shareholders were hurt by Madoff.
{Many} shareholders were hurt by Madoff.
{Twenty} shareholders were hurt by Madoff.

The context should spontaneously indicate collective or adjective usage.

A {box of CPUs} with lot-id 123A456 was registered at outgoing inspection gate.
{A box of} tomatoes were stolen from the warehouse.

"Few" is more likely used as quantifying adjective than as quantified collective, because you would never say,

Three few people were arrested.

(In fact, is "few" even a collective descriptor?)

history - Etymology of the name Wales/Welsh in modern English: which one is the basic term?

I am interested in the way the name of Wales (and of the Welsh) has been transliterated/translated in other languages.

(I have become interested in that because, as a native Romanian speaker I have noticed the abnormal translation of that name in Romanian — more on that here. — I think that in some cases — the Romance languages, except Romanian, maybe Corsican too? — "Wales" has been translated by replacing W with G. I wonder if that is the case or not: whether the term Wales has been taken into account as such within the neo-Latin language and adapted to it, or was the G-version term first created in Latin? But that is not the question here, it would be a subject for a different question, a per-language SE question - not for this site).

All I am asking here is: what is the situation in English?

I think I am familiar with the root-word: the Proto-Germanic word walha 'foreigner, stranger, Romance-speaker', brought by Anglo-Saxons to the British Isles. In Old English, the name of the country comes from the name of the people: Wealana/Wealas means "foreigners" and Wales (like Cornwall) derives from that (more here).

What about the word Welsh in Modern English? Is it derived from the name of the country (Wales) (just like Romanian is derived from Romania) or directly from the name of the people in Old English (Wealas) (like Romania is derived from român/roman)?

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EDIT AFTER COMMENT:

What happens in Old English is clear to me. The term is an adjective (foreigner) that gives the name of the people and then of the country. But in modern English it seems to me that Welsh comes from Wales like "selfish" comes from "self", "girlish" from girl, and by the way Polish from Pole, French from France, Italian from Italy, Romanian from Romania — that is: like it happens in most other (foreign) languages where the name of the Welsh is derived from the name of the country (transliterated from English).

Is that impression justified? If yes, that would be normal, many modern exonyms are created like that (Hungary > Hungarian, Wallachia > Wallachian, Romania > Romanian); while the endonyms operate conversely: magyar > Magyarország; valah > Valahia, român* > România.

Answer

Short answer:

The term Wales initially referred to the people, with Wales as the name of the country coming from that later. Welsh (the present name of the people) comes from the old adjective describing individual members of The Wales, rather than the present name of the country.

 Volcae -> Walhaz (people) -> Wælas (people)     -> Wales (people)     -> Wales (country)
                           -> Wælisc (adjective) -> Welsh (adjective)  -> Welsh (people)

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As you noted, the history of the term Welsh (people) comes from the Old English Wælas, from Proto-Germanic Walhaz, derived from the Roman name for these people - the Volcae (which was almost anybody living in the Western Roman Empire, who wasn't a Roman).

Note, the group-name for the people was the Wælas, and from the same root - comes the word to describe an individual as being part of that group - Wælisc. (Similar to the group Celts, and individuals who are Celtic)

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However, during this time - there was no single country called "Wales" (or a variant of).

On the island of Great Britain, we had the people (also referred to by the same Volcae/Wælas/foreigner terms) who would be known as Britons (due to the actual place they were).

When the Anglo-Saxons arrived, the Britons were slowly pushed back towards Strathclyde, Cornwall and modern-day Wales. As such, the term Wælas was now applied to the peoples in these specific regions, contrasting to the Anglo-Saxon settlers on the rest of the island.

(Note, each of these regions was still controlled by different groups, such as Strætcledwalas for the Wælas that lived around Strathclyde)

In the 13th Century, the remaining parts of these regions were then taken over by a single ruler, and the title "Prince of Wales" was given by Henry III.

Note that this is "Prince of Wales" as in "Prince of [the] Wales (people)".

From here, with those regions under control of a single ruler, fitting into the larger system - the name "Wales" appears to understandably transition from "the Wales (people)" to "the name of that region that contains all of the Wales".

(Giving the country it's modern name "Wales").

At the same time as all of this, as mentioned at the start, the individual themselves were described as Wælisc (as was their language). This then turned into the more modern "Welsh" (e.g. "A Welsh person"), which is now used as the collective noun for the people as a whole (The Welsh).

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Note, as this is an English question - this answer does not mention the self-identified name Cymru, which was the name the 'Welsh' people have in their own language.

Sources:
https://wordhistories.net/2016/07/28/wales-cymru/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales#Etymology

grammar - How is "plenty" a pronoun in "plenty of time"?

The Oxford Dictionaries list "plenty" as a pronoun. Example sentences include:

I would have plenty of time to get home before my parents arrived

There are shops in plenty

But pronoun by definition is a word that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase. How is "plenty" a pronoun in these examples? What noun/noun phrase does it substitute for? In contrast, Merriam Webster lists it as noun, not pronoun. I think in the sentence You will have plenty to draw from "plenty" is a pronoun, but it being a pronoun doesn't make sense in the two sentences above. How is the usage of "plenty" in those sentences different from that of these ones:

I need a large amount of money.

There was food and drink in abundance.

Both "amount" and "abundance" are listed as noun in dictionaries.

grammar - "At one end of the street" vs. "At the one end of the street"

"At one end of the street" vs. "At the one end of the street"

Which phrase is more correct?
or
Are they both correct only the meaning is slightly different?
or
Are both fine meaning the same?

assuming that it's part of the following context: "You'll find the street easily. There's a school at (the) one end of it. There's a hospital at the other end."

Answer

Probably by reason of symmetry, you'll sometime find "the one" in expressions

the one end ... the other end

In fact, we have the illustrious example of Benjamin Franklin from his Memoirs (1840) describing experiments in the electrical conductivity of bodies of water:

[L]et the one end [of the wire] communicate with the water, and let one person stand in the other brook....

But the Ngram viewer shows an least 20:1 preference for leaving off the article.

conjunctions - Would pronouns be objective or subjective in this sentence?

Sentence:

John's entire plan was nothing more than him/he and me/I walking by
his neighbors' houses armed with twenty-eight inches of potentially
bone-crushing sports equipment.

Should I use "he and I" or "him and me" in this sentence? I am actually an English teacher, but this sentence is giving me fits!

grammatical number - Can you have a singular "dreg"?

Is it linguistically incorrect to singularise the word "dregs", as in the following example:

He finished off every last dreg of his
coffee.

If so, are there any other English words which can only exist in plural form?

Answer

However rare, dreg is indeed the singular form of dregs. The word enjoyed employment by Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida (Act 3, Sc. 2):

What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

I managed to gather a few words ending in -s that are most often used as plural-only: scissors, shears, tongs, trousers, measles, series, gallows, species, thanks, clothes, bellows, outskirts, pampas, premises, pajamas, rabies.

Grammar Rules regarding the pronoun 'it'

"I want to be a doctor. I like helping people that's why I want to be it."
"Where's your new iphone? Can you show me it?"
What grammar rules govern the use of the pronoun 'it' in these sentences. They don't sound natural but I'm not sure if they are incorrect.

Answer

In the first example, the antecedent is "a doctor". The usual way to refer back to an indefinite antecedent (e.g., a noun preceded by the indefinite article) is one:

I want to be a doctor. I like helping people that's why I want to be
one.

As Swan in Practical English Usage (p369) states in his entry on one:

We often use one instead of repeating a singular countable noun.

• Can you len me a pen? ~ Sorry, I don't have one.

In the second example, there is a definite, identifiable antecedent. The usual pronoun for definite, non-human antecedents is it. So there is nothing wrong with it itself in Can you show me it? Some native speakers, however, may object to the order of the pronouns, and prefer: Can you show it to me?

There's a lengthy discussion on this latter issue, here:

Is it incorrect to say, 'Give me it'?

and here:

Direct object "it" in final position... grammatical?