Timeline for Is "potential" a countable noun?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
22 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 4, 2018 at 1:36 | comment | added | Tom22 | @aesking while I still believe there are issues and that use in particular is strained, it is hard to say. Certainly if we were to say "his probabilities" it would be odd, but "his propensities" or 'the audience members' propensities' it would be ok. I suppose the question is does "potential" refer to a personal quality or more like 'momentum' which refers to the growth in a task itself, not the person's degree of being naturally prone. Is it "they have a potential as an actor, or they have potential in acting (with or without the 'a' ) ... I think they are both used. | |
| Apr 4, 2018 at 0:06 | comment | added | aesking | also can technology have more than 1 potentials because it is non-human just like action potentials are? or abstract ideas. it is not talking a person's potential, which is different? | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 23:56 | comment | added | aesking | e.g. Definition of potential: latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness. "a young broadcaster with great potential" | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 23:53 | comment | added | aesking | @Tom22 Edwin disagrees with ODO too. Don't you think its strange there is no plural form of potential in the context we are talking about (because it can't be counted) and perhaps why 'he has potential (maybe more than one potential)' is idiomatic. Yes in science it can be counted and hence it has both singular and plural forms: 1 action potential; 2 action potentials (it can be counted and has both plural forms-hence why it is a count noun) but not when referring to a person's potential ("uncountable nouns don't have a plural"-only singular). It makes sense does it not? | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 23:43 | comment | added | Tom22 | @aesking the only problem is that the Oxford dictionary disagrees with us .. so, maybe I should delete the comment. They seem to see such thing as "a potential" .. I suppose a "likelihood for fame" and a "likelihood for fortune" are two "likelihoods" ... or a "knack for knitting" and a "knack for puzzles" as 'two knacks" .. I guess if you can have a "x for" it is a thing - certainly we have "the loves of my life in common use. I am deleting, reluctantly. | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 23:05 | answer | added | Hot Licks | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 22:56 | comment | added | Hot Licks | Speaking of counts, what is the difference between the 1st and 3rd example lines??? | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 20:25 | comment | added | aesking | My question is: Countable nouns have a singular and plural form. Is it really a countable noun when its only a countable noun in its plural form? | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 20:24 | comment | added | aesking | Again is the OP asking if 'potential' or 'potentials' is a count noun or not? LOL. Because I was under the impression we were talking about the noun 'potential' and not its plural form. | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 20:13 | comment | added | Hot Licks | @JJJ -- And you could say the same thing about the measurement of the audience's weight. | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:52 | comment | added | JJJ | @HotLicks this question is a bit more complicated, if you have a group of people you take their measurements (each group member has their own measurement, perhaps even multiple measurements depending on context), whereas in this case you could also speak of the potential the audience has as whole (as opposed to each audience member's individual potential). | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:50 | comment | added | Hot Licks | It's countable in the same sense that "measurement" is countable. | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:43 | comment | added | Barmar | @aesking I couldn't make sense of the question as originally written, unless he was asking which is more correct. And the duplication was in the original. | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:43 | history | edited | JJJ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
clearer formatting, added question to body. tag change
|
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:40 | answer | added | JJJ | timeline score: 3 | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:39 | comment | added | aesking | @Barmar, the question shouldn't have been edited as it made total sense and the nature of what is been asked has changed. The question wasn't whether the 3 questions were correct or not; furthermore the first and last question are the same. | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:26 | answer | added | ANNIE CARDOZ | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:21 | history | edited | Barmar | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
formatting
|
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:15 | comment | added | BillJ | "Potential" may occur as a plural (for some) , but that doesn't mean it's a count noun. It's a non-count noun since it cannot combine with the cardinal numbers "one, two, three" etc. There's no *"two/three/potentials". | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:10 | answer | added | aesking | timeline score: -1 | |
| Apr 3, 2018 at 18:56 | review | First posts | |||
| Apr 3, 2018 at 21:27 | |||||
| Apr 3, 2018 at 18:55 | history | asked | Jinjing Shr | CC BY-SA 3.0 |