Timeline for Countable/uncountable nouns Rice vs Stars
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 20, 2018 at 14:48 | comment | added | John Lawler | Yes. The key property is individuation. You can only count individuals, not masses which must be measured, nor abstractions like love that can't be measured. At a certain granularity, there is a grey area: rice is mass, but beans and lentils are count; even though they are roughly the same size, you have to say a bowl of rice and a bowl of beans and not the other way around. This is fairly arbitrary, but only at that granularity. | |
| Mar 20, 2018 at 12:51 | vote | accept | Arun | ||
| Mar 20, 2018 at 12:47 | comment | added | Pam | @Arun I've made an edit to account for "stars". | |
| Mar 20, 2018 at 12:46 | history | edited | Pam | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Answering the second part of the question as requested by asker.
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| Mar 20, 2018 at 9:54 | comment | added | Arun | Yes, Pam. Thank you. This leaves the second part of the question open. Shouldn't "stars" be uncountable too? | |
| Mar 20, 2018 at 9:42 | history | answered | Pam | CC BY-SA 3.0 |