The printer’s manuscript has the singular howling, whereas the 1830 edition has the plural howlings. The plural works better with the plural verb were. Yet there is evidence, at least in existential statements, for were to be followed by a singular count noun, including one case where that count noun takes the verbal ending -ing:
Under Helaman 3:31, I list five other instances of “there were ” in the original text. Such examples suggest that the occurrence of were followed by a singular count noun in 𝓟 for 3 Nephi 8:25 is possible (“and thus were the howling of the people great and terrible”). Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that here in 3 Nephi 8:25 the reading is not an existential statement; instead, we have two conjoined predicate adjectives (“great and terrible”) that act as subject complement to “the howling(s) of the people”.
Other examples of howling(s) in conjoined noun phrases always agree in number:
Of course, in 3 Nephi 8:25 howling(s) is not conjoined with any noun. But one could argue that Oliver Cowdery accidentally wrote the singular howling in verse 25 because of its occurrence two verses earlier in the text: “and there was great mourning and howling and weeping” (3 Nephi 8:23).
There are many examples in the early transmission of the text where the grammatical number was mixed up for count nouns taking the verbal ending -ing. Here I list a number of cases where Oliver Cowdery wrote a singular form in 𝓟 instead of the plural, two of which he left uncorrected (each of these is marked below with an asterisk):
There are two instances where the 1830 compositor made the opposite change, from a singular count noun taking the verbal ending -ing to the plural. For one of these examples, the error is obvious:
but unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with [healing 1BCDEFGHIJLMNOPQRST|healings AK] in his wings
In this case, we have a biblical quotation from Malachi 4:2, which has the singular healing. The 1830 compositor’s error, healings, may have been the result of him anticipating the following wings, which ends in ings; also note that this same error of healings was made by the compositor for the 1892 RLDS edition.
But there is a second example where the 1830 compositor changed a singular count noun ending in -ing to -ings, namely, in the example from Mosiah 19:3, listed above, where in the printer’s manuscript Oliver Cowdery seems to have accidentally written the singular threatening (spelled as threatning), which the 1830 compositor, John Gilbert, corrected in 𝓟 to the plural and set as threatenings (spelled as threatnings) in the printed edition:
and the lesser part began to breathe out [threatning >jg threatnings 1|threatnings ABCD|
threatenings EFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] against the king
In other words, Gilbert was perfectly willing to correct what appeared to be an obvious error in number. Thus one could argue that the same thing happened here in 3 Nephi 8:25: 𝓞 read “and thus were the howling of the people great and terrible”, an obvious error in subject-verb agreement, so Gilbert changed howling to howlings. This is not to say, however, that such a proposed reading in 𝓞 was actually correct. It is very possible that the scribe for 𝓞 (presumably Oliver Cowdery) accidentally omitted the plural s from howlings when he took down Joseph Smith’s dictation. Clearly, we have the evidence listed earlier in this discussion that Oliver could have made such a mistake in 𝓞.
Thus evidence from transmission errors can be found in support of both variants, howling and howlings, here in 3 Nephi 8:25. Oliver Cowdery could have accidentally changed the plural howlings to the singular in 𝓟 (or even in 𝓞), or John Gilbert could have consciously corrected the difficult but possible reading howling to howlings when he set the type for the 1830 edition.
When we turn to usage elsewhere in the text, we find that when the be verb is in the plural we get only plurals for count nouns that take the verbal ending -ing:
Mosiah 8:20 yea and how blind and impenetrable are the understandings
of the children of men
Alma 50:19 how merciful and just are all the dealings of the Lord 3 Nephi 8:23 yea great were the groanings of the people
In fact, the last example occurs only two verses earlier in this same chapter, and its reference to “the groanings of the people” parallels verse 25’s reference to “the howlings of the people” (at least in the 1830 edition). Moreover, all three of these examples have predicate adjectives acting as subject complements, just like here in 3 Nephi 8:25. To be sure, there are cases of plural count nouns ending in the verbal -ing where we get the singular form of the be verb instead of the plural were in the original text; note that these examples also have predicate adjectives acting as subject complements:
and so great [was 0|was >js were 1|were ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the blessings of the Lord upon us that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness our women did give plenty of suck for their children
Mosiah 23:24
and great [was >js were 1|was A|were BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] their rejoicings
But elsewhere in the text there are no sentences involving predicate adjectives where a count noun ending in the verbal -ing is in the singular while the associated be verb is in the plural. Thus internal evidence supports the 1830 reading here in 3 Nephi 8:25, but not overwhelmingly since there are only a handful of examples. And the evidence from transmission errors is inconclusive. Ultimately, the most significant evidence in favor of the plural howlings in verse 25 is the parallel use of the plural groanings earlier in verse 23 (“yea great were the groanings of the people”). The critical text will therefore accept the 1830 reading in verse 25, the expected reading: “and thus were the howlings of the people great and terrible”. In fact, the use of thus here in verse 25 suggests a connection to the previous “great were the groanings of the people”. The singular howling in 𝓟 therefore appears to be an error resulting from the use of the singular howling earlier in verse 23 (“and there was great mourning and howling and weeping”).
3 Nephi 9
Summary: Maintain in 3 Nephi 8:25 the use of the plural howlings, the 1830 reading; although the singular howling, the reading in 𝓟, is possible, it seems more likely that the original reading was the expected one, “and thus were the howlings of the people great and terrible”; usage elsewhere in the text supports the plural howlings in this kind of expression, especially the phraseology earlier in 3 Nephi 8:23: “yea great were the groanings of the people”.