In the context of:
The town has twenty "miles of roads" to maintain.
Cambridge Dictionary says it is both count, and non-count.
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3For me,it's of road.– LambieCommented Sep 4, 2019 at 18:56
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1@Cascabel 'Take me home, country roads' - there's your count version.– marcellothearcaneCommented Sep 4, 2019 at 19:22
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1@marcellothearcane "She had a face like 50 miles of bad road.". There's your non-count version.– Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_Commented Sep 4, 2019 at 19:43
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2Either is valid. In the above example it's a matter of personal choice. In other cases it would depend on context.– Hot LicksCommented Sep 4, 2019 at 19:56
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3It could be either. Are emphasizing that there are multiple roads (count noun) or that there is lots of road material (mass noun)?– Jason BassfordCommented Sep 5, 2019 at 2:58
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1 Answer
For words that are both countable and non-countable, I would use the plural for unitless numbers expressing multitude, and the singular for physical quantities with a unit.
- There are dozens of roads leading to Rome.
- The town has twenty miles of road to maintain.
- The barrel contains tens of thousands of grains. (I meant grain as a seed, not as a unit, but the sentence is correct for both interpretations.)
- It takes several pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat.
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You remind me of the common idiom: "All roads lead to Rome." Commented Sep 6, 2019 at 16:33