Why is 'bread' uncountable?

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Hoca

#177527 Sun, 01 Jan 06 02:10 PM

Hi again. I asked this question before here but somehow I can't find my post. Somebody had answered my question "Why is bread uncountable?" I remember not too much....

Also if bread is uncountable why isn't watermelon?

Hoca

Joined on Sat, Jun 21 2003

New Member (19)

Dj Bueno

#177536 Sun, 01 Jan 06 02:27 PM

Hi Hoca,

You can reach your previous posts by clicking the "my forums" button on the top of the page..

Best regards,

DjB

Dj Bueno

Joined on Mon, Jul 18 2005

İstanbul

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Gulyabani vardır, korkacak bir şey yoktur.

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Philip

#177585 Sun, 01 Jan 06 04:42 PM

Hoca wrote:

Hi again. I asked this question before here but somehow I can't find my post. Somebody had answered my question "Why is bread uncountable?" I remember not too much....

Also if bread is uncountable why isn't watermelon?

'Bir ekmek' is perfectly correct, but in English we say two loaves of bread two slices of bread, but not two breads. We can also have a slice of watermelon or two watermelons, or a watermelon. Why? Because languages are man-made and therefore subject to irregularity.

Philip

Joined on Thu, Jun 23 2005

USA Pacific Northwest (Seattle)

Veteran Member (6,283)

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paco2004

#177768 Sun, 01 Jan 06 11:57 PM

Hoca wrote:
Hi again. I asked this question before here but somehow I can't find my post. Somebody had answered my question "Why is bread uncountable?" I remember not too much....Also if bread is uncountable why isn't watermelon?

Hello Hoca

In old times, Anglo-Saxons used "a bread" to mean "a broken piece", "a crumb" or "a bit". Instead they used "loaf" to mean the baked flour in a mass. So if the old Anglo-Saxon collocation had continued to be spoken as it was, we might now say "a bread of loaf". But in 10th century, the kids born with a Scandinavian as their father and an Anglo-Saxon as their mother somehow began to say "a loaf of bread".

As for "watermelon", you can say "watermelons" when you find them growing in the fields. But when you eat it, you should say just "watermelon" or "a piece/slice of watermelon". It is because people rarely eat a whole watermelon at once.

I'll eat a watermelon.

paco

paco2004

Joined on Wed, Nov 17 2004

Senior Member (4,095)

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CalifJim

#178326 Tue, 03 Jan 06 03:54 AM

if bread is uncountable why isn't watermelon?

The premisses of the question are incorrect. "watermelon" can also be uncountable.

Regardless of what word you use in your language for a loaf of bread - the object that can be carried about - "bread" in English is not an object, but a substance.
If I take a piece of bread, that is, a piece of the substance called "bread", and I divide it into five or six pieces, each of the pieces is also a piece of bread, that is, a piece of the substance called "bread". I can divide the pieces even further, and I still have pieces of bread. You cannot do that with an object, for example, a table. If I divide a table into five or six pieces, I do not have many pieces of the substance called "table"! "table" is countable, and "bread" is not.

"watermelon" can be used as an object -- the whole watermelon -- or as a substance -- the edible substance that comes from the watermelon. "I'm going to buy two watermelons" or "I'm hungry. I think I'll have some watermelon."

CJ

CalifJim

Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004

California

Veteran Member (17,568)

"There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche