Timeline for Possible "rule" for uncountable nouns
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 1, 2015 at 12:42 | answer | added | Mark Wood | timeline score: 0 | |
| Sep 1, 2015 at 12:23 | comment | added | Hot Licks | Virtually any noun can become countable in the right context. | |
| Sep 1, 2015 at 11:36 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | The 'rules' are rules of thumb; English is often idiosyncratic. 'I'll have two beers' is colloquial but widely accepted; 'I'll have two waters' sounds unnatural to myself and others on other websites (and is ambiguous); 'I'll have two mixeds' is outlandish. Have a look at other threads here; there seem to be intermediate usages ('A paralyzing horror overwhelmed him.' / *'Two paralyzing horrors overwhelmed them.'); 'Blue-green algae is/are present in the lake.' And why is fruit (mass) given singular agreement, but vegetables (mass) not? | |
| Sep 1, 2015 at 9:19 | comment | added | Brian Hitchcock | In all of your "rule 1" examples, you used mass nouns that can be divided into discrete portions. In your "rule 2" examples you used _abstract nouns which can have singular instances Neither of these is a "rule". As you noted with the apple and the music, some nouns, whether concrete or abstract, are not used for either the divided or instance sense. apple, however, is not a mass noun, so one speaks of a piece of apple. Also a piece of music. Or pie. Or cake. Or a million other nouns. But you could give a baby "some" apple, or "some applesauce" on a teaspoon. | |
| Sep 1, 2015 at 8:26 | history | edited | rogermue | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 29 characters in body; edited tags
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| Sep 1, 2015 at 4:47 | answer | added | Adam | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 1, 2015 at 2:21 | history | asked | michael_timofeev | CC BY-SA 3.0 |