etymology - "Cannon" as plural


I'm reading a novel based in ye olde pirate-times, and I have come across the author's usage of "cannon" (without the "s") to refer to multiple cannons.



The ship boasted 32 cannon onboard.



Is this just an archaic usage that the author is employing for purposes of story-telling? Also, how/why did this evolve to "cannons" in modern usage?



Answer



Strange as it seems, cannon does appear to have once been a mass noun, like rain or infantry. Instead of saying rains, one says drops of rain. Similarly, instead of saying cannons, it appears that one either said cannon or pieces of cannon. Consider the google Ngram below:


two cannon/cannons/pieces of cannon


Here, the curve for two cannon is higher than it should be, because of constructions like two cannon balls.


Tsuyoshi is right about cannons being the plural in the 1500's; Google Ngrams doesn't have adequate data before early the 1700's, but we can check Shakespeare, who uses cannon as a regular count noun. So the plural has gone from cannons, to pieces of cannon, to cannon, and back to cannons.


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