[title]Family quotes[/title] [description]Welcome to our family quotes section! Here you'll find some of the funniest (and wisest) quotes on the subject of family life![/description]
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Latest post Mon, Aug 3 2009 11:21 AM by aditivij18. 10 replies.
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Anonymous  +  340701 Mon, 19 Mar 07 04:03 AM

Is money considered a countable noun since we do count our money in daily life? Why is it then we say "so much money" rather than "so many money"? Thanks for the explanation

Yoong Liat  +  340705 Mon, 19 Mar 07 04:20 AM
 Anonymous wrote:

Is money considered a countable noun since we do count our money in daily life? Why is it then we say "so much money" rather than "so many money"? Thanks for the explanation

'Money' is an uncountable noun. This is because we cannot say, "1 money, 2 money, etc."

Yes, it's true, we can count money in the sense that we can say, "1 dollar, 2 dollars, etc." But we are counting 'dollar', not 'money'. Therefore, 'dollar' makes money countable, so 'dollar' is a countable noun.

I hope this helps.

Joined on Mon, Sep 4 2006
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Doll  +  340763 Mon, 19 Mar 07 09:53 AM
I really don't understand the logic in countable and uncountable difference.Hormones are countable but why is money  uncountable ?Big Smile [:D]
Joined on Sat, Mar 10 2007
Senior Member 2,813
Yoong Liat  +  340914 Mon, 19 Mar 07 03:37 PM

 Doll wrote:
I really don't understand the logic in countable and uncountable difference.Hormones are countable but why is money  uncountable ?Big Smile [:D]

We can say "A hormone ... ". Therefore, hormone is an uncountable noun.

We cannot say, "A money." Neither can we say, "A water." Therefore, both 'money' and 'water' are uncountable nouns.

Doll  +  341009 Mon, 19 Mar 07 08:24 PM

We can say "A hormone ... ". Therefore, hormone is an uncountable noun.     

 I think you tried to say countable noun.

Wolfrolf  +  341180 Tue, 20 Mar 07 05:27 AM
Hi,
Countable nouns are associated with the notion of 'completeness'.  A living chicken is a unity because it is complete (normally) we can distinguish one chicken from another one, so we can count it, we can say a chicken or one chicken.  But what happens when we refer to the food, the flesh?  In that case chicken becomes 'matter', 'substance' with different shapes and weights it loses its identity.  It ceases to be a unity.  We say 'I had chicken for lunch.' when chicken is the food we ate.  We would say 'I had a chicken for lunch.' to mean that we ate the whole animal, which is possible but not very likely.

The thing with money in its general sense is that it is an abstract notion.  Money is not thought of as a unity in itself.  We do not count one money, two moneys.  When we say we count money we mean that we count currency which is the measurement for money.  We count one dollar, two dollars, three dollars and so on...

Hormones can be thought of as unities because we can distinguish one hormone from another.

Well, I hope I helped.  But maybe someone could explain why and in which situations the plural form 'moneys' is used.  I heard that a couple of times.  It is obviously an exceptional case but I would like to know its meaning.

Bye.
Joined on Tue, Nov 22 2005
New Member 44
Yoong Liat  +  341184 Tue, 20 Mar 07 05:40 AM
 Doll wrote:

We can say "A hormone ... ". Therefore, hormone is an uncountable noun.     

 I think you tried to say countable noun.

You're right. It should be 'countable noun'. Thanks.

Anonymous, 143 days ago
Wow Wolfrolf, that was an extremely helpful post. Your unity explanation was the only answer here that wasn't begging the question. Money isn't uncountable because we say "a lot of money." We say "a lot of money" because money is uncountable, and it's uncountable because we count currencies, not an abstract place holder. I have to teach a lesson on countable and uncountable nouns today, and I feel prepared now.


As for your question about "monies," I think people use the plural here when they are referring to a number of currencies rather than the single currency they generally use.

Anonymous, 139 days ago
Hey,, money can sometimes be countable too...it's when we refer to "sum of money" esp. one that has a special origin like:"State education monies".
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