The Grammar of English Grammars, page 538 by Gould Brown
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by a preposition understood; as, "He demands a dollar an hour;" i. e., a dollar for each hour.--"He comes twice a year:" i. e., twice in every year.--"He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses:" (_1 Kings_, v, 14:) i. e., ten thousand, _monthly_; or, as our merchants say, "per month." Some grammarians have also remarked, that, "In mercantile accounts, we frequently see a put for to, in a very odd sort of way; as, 'Six bales marked 1 a 6.' The merchant means, 'marked from 1 to 6.' This is taken to be a relic of the Norman French, which was once the law and mercantile language of England; for, in French, a, with an accent, signifies to or at."--_Emmons's Gram._, p. 73. Modern merchants, in stead of accenting the a, commonly turn the end of it back; as, @.
OBS. 26.--Sometimes a numeral word with the indefinite article--as _a few, a great many, a dozen, a hundred, a thousand_--denotes an aggregate of several or many taken collectively, and yet is followed by a plural noun, denoting the sort or species of which this particular aggregate is a part: as, "A few small fishes,"--"A great many mistakes,"--"A dozen bottles of wine,"--"A hundred lighted candles,"--"A thousand miles off." Respecting the proper manner of explaining these phrases, grammarians differ in opinion. That the article relates not to the plural noun, but to the numerical word only, is very evident; but whether, in these instances, the words _few, many, dozen, hundred_, and thousand, are to be called nouns or adjectives, is matter of dispute. Lowth, Murray, and many others, call them adjectives, and suppose a peculiarity of construction in the article;--like that of the singular adjectives every and one in the phrases, "Every ten days,"--"One seven times more."--_Dan._, iii, 19. Churchill and others call them nouns, and suppose the plurals which