Tell me why.

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Believer  #266847  Thu, 14 Sep 06 12:25 PM

Please tell me why the underlined ingredients are manifesting only the countable side of their variable nature? I got this menu item from a TOGO's menu sheet and according to my knowledge, the company TOGO's is an American food chain dealing with a variety of delectable (mouth watering) sandwiches.

A Well Dressed Sandwich

Sanwiches come with the following: mayo or mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, pickles, pepperoncinis, salt & pepper.

1. Are all orange-colored items uncountable nouns and is that why there is no article in front of them?

2. Why, if all pink-colored items are variable nouns, only their countable sides are being manifested/used here?

Thank you.      

  
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J Lewis  #266865  Thu, 14 Sep 06 12:56 PM
Mayo, mustard, lettuce (as used here), salt and pepper are uncountable and that's why there's no article.
To be strictly logical, "tomatoes" should refer to whole tomatoes, while we should say "tomato" to mean slices of tomato. The same applies to "red onions". Still, it doesn't sound bad in the plural, I don't know why. Pickle (at least to my British ear) is a savoury jam-like substance and pickles would mean different types of this. In addition, pickles can be pieces of pickled vegetable.

Believer, may I correct your grammar? You use the present continuous at the beginning, but "manifest" is appropriate here. It's not an action going on, but a set situation. Further down, too, "are manifested", not "are being manifested".
 
Now a digression about spelling. There is a double "p" in the English word "pepper" but not in the Italian words peperone (the big, sweet pepper) or peperoncino (the small hot one). The plurals are peperoni and peperoncini. Before adding an "s" to a word which is already plural they could have consulted one of the millions of Italian-speakers who live in the USA! Unfortunately this is a well-established error. In Britain, and I imagine also in the USA, the word pepperone doesn't even mean a vegetable but is applied to hot salame (that's another one: salami is the plural again).
Cheers,
Lewis
  
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