Search results for 'tag:Uncountable nouns' matching tag 'Uncountable nouns'

Re: creams and detergents

Kooyeen — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:20:00 GMT

I'd say I agree with MrM. My dictionary (Longman) lists those words saying [C or U], which means they can be treated as countable or uncountable nouns, generally speaking. Anyway, even for the uncountable words it doesn't explicitly list as countable too, I think we can say uncountable nouns can often be "categorized" and used with an article. I can't be sure, but I'd say a sentence like this is ok, for example: I've never heard an English like that. = I've never heard a kind of English like that.
By the way, another reason why certain uncountable nouns are often used as countable nouns might be that lots of commercial products are sold in its own container, and uncountable product + container = countable product. A soda. A cream. But this doesn't seem to work for every product, I'm afraid.
Just my opinion.

EDIT: I just read Goodman's post, and I started to think of "waters" to mean two "portions" of water, two bottles, whatever. It seems reasonable, if you think of beers and sodas, but that's exactly the kind of thing I'm not sure about yet. So I searched the net and... I was so lucky! Look, GG says "two waters" at the restaurant, so I guess it's ok to treat it as countable in that context, like other uncountable things.
http://www.englishforums.com/English/SoupEating/clhqn/post.htm

Re: creams and detergents

Goodman — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:19:09 GMT

Mr. Miclawer,

I wasnât going to expand this pluralization discussion on âcreamsâ and âwinesâ.
But it really bothered the heck out of me for two reasons.
1) I really wanted to find out if I was really blowing hot air on this subject
because of my misunderstanding of this topic, and 2) if there is another side of the usage
I am not aware of.
This is perhaps not relevant to the discussion but to establish my point, I think it needs
to be said. Mrs. Milton whom I learned English from was an excellent English teacher who
also had taught for 5 years at the Beijing University, which is a top University in China, by
invitation of the Government. Many of her students had landed positions working for the
Chinese Government and the U.N. as translators and interpreters. I was very blessed to be
among her students. Most of my English foundation was learned from her. And I was really
surprised to see your examples pluralizing âcreamâ and âwineâ. By your earlier examples, which I
compared with the information found on the WEB, I must ask this question. Am I to understand
that itâs completely grammatical to say in a restaurant âmay I have 2 waters and soups?â. I know
we hear that all the time but if we are discussing the whether a particular usage is grammatically
correct, running into this type of scenario is inevitable. Here are some âsupportsâ you had
asked for which may not may not be validated to your satisfaction. No doubt, you are the
English authority and perhaps possess âsuperiorityâ over many frequented this forum and I donât
mean to sound like challenging your examples, let alone to waste anymore of your time.
Nonetheless, as a serious learner, Iâd owe the real answers to myself and the learners if I just
accepted your answers as given. I may be wrong with my search result and you are correct.
And If so, here is my âadvanced apologyâ.

Nouns only countable nouns can be either singular or plural. ... He had some ice cream on
his face. He had an ice cream. mass. countable ...
www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/tta/wc/nouns.htm - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

http://ajaja.paradoxinc.org/Basic/Grammar/CountAndNoncount.ht

Liquids: beer, milk, coffee, blood, cream, juice, honey, gasoline, oil, shampoo, soup, tea, water, wine.

Solids and semi-solids: Bread, butter, cheese, ice, ice cream, lettuce, toast, meat, beef, chicken, fish, ham, lamb, pork, chalk, 
copper, cotton, glass, gold, iron, , soap, tin, toothpaste, wood, wool,

http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/countnon.html

A Revision of the RulesThe exceptions require that the rule for pluralizing be revised: count nouns and nouns used 
in a count sense can be pluralized; noncount nouns and nouns used in a noncount sense cannot.

	Pluralizes with -s	Does not Pluralize
Count Noun	X
Count Use	X
Noncount Noun		X
Noncount Use		X

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080425090142AAom2ui

Answers (4)

If coffee is an uncountable noun, cream certainly is by common sense. Thus the rule applies.

Â· Answerer 1

Many nouns can be used as countables or uncountables. It depends on whether you are thinking of a substance or
a single serving or object made of the substance. So:

Beer is fattening (uncountable - the substance)
Don't drink more than three beers a day. (Countable - servings)

I love chocolate (uncountable - the substance)
Get me a box of chocolates (countable - individual pieces)

A vase made of blown glass (uncountable - the substance)
A glass of wine (A single piece / artifact)

Coffee gives me indigestion (the substance - uncountable)
I need at least three coffees to wake up on a morning (countable - individual servings)

2 months ago

http://www3.law.cuny.edu/wc/students/multilingual/articles.html

Uncountable nouns often refer to drinks and food, other general substances, or concepts (meat, tea, steel, information, justice):

Examples of Uncountable Nouns in English:

Food and Drink: bacon, beef, beer, bread, butter, cabbage, candy, cauliflower, chicken, chocolate, coffee, corn,
cream, fish, fruit, juice, lettuce, meat, milk, oil, pasta, rice, salt, spinach, sugar, tea, water, whiskey, wine, yogurt.
General Substances: air,cement, clay, coal, copper, dirt, dust, foam, gasoline, gold, ice, leather, paper, petroleum,
plastic, rain, rubber, silver, soap, steel, wood, wool.
Abstract nouns: abandonment, access, adultery, advice, alimony, anger, anguish, arson, authentication, beauty, capacity,
conduct, confidence, courage, deprivation, desperation, discretion, employment, empowerment, evidence, extortion, fortune,
fun, happiness, health, honesty, housing, information, insurance, intelligence, intent, knowledge, land, love, malice, negligence,
poverty, privacy, real estate, sadness, satisfaction, strength, truth, wealth.
Others: biology, clothing, darkness, equipment, furniture, gossip, homework, jewelry, luggage, machinery, mail, money, music,
news, poetry, pollution, research, scenery, traffic, transportation, violence, weather, weight, work.

Some uncountable nouns (except for concepts) can be turned into countable nouns by preposing a phrase to them
(two bottles of wine, a bar of soap, a piece of information, an act of violence, a burst of anger, a piece of evidence).

e.g. The defendant's lawyer is sure the judge will accept new evidence in this case.

vs. The defendant's lawyer is sure the judge will accept three new pieces of evidence in this case.

Some uncountable nouns can be used in the plural, but their meaning changes:

experience / experiences: e.g., He had to rely on experience / I lived unforgettable experiences

Re: creams and detergents

Yoong Liat — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:30:44 GMT

'Cream' is an uncountable noun according to Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners and Times-Chambers Essential English Dictionary.

Re: check sentences please

Mister Micawber — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:01:19 GMT

.
You need to be more careful when you type posts; use the Preview function to check yourself, so that we don't have to fix your simple mistakes.

1. We are going to hold/have a discussion on this matter now. -- I know that a certain word triggers a need for a countable or uncountable noun. Is this one of those cases?

2. Are you be able to / Can you take care of this?

3. I hope you will be able to take care of this right away.

4. Can you fix the handle of/to this door?
He went in by the main door of the house.

check sentences please

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:48:16 GMT

Hi,

1. We are going to hold/have discussio (or - a discussion?) on this matter now. -- I konw that a certain word trigger a need for a countable or a uncountable noun. Is this one of those cases?

2. Can you be able to take care of this?

3. I hope you would be able to take of this right away. -- what comes after 'hope' is normally a present or fututre tense?

4. Can you fix this handle of the door (or - handle to the door?)? - when is 'handle to the door' is good and when is "handle of the door" is good?
He went in by the main door of (to??) the house.

advantage

Taka — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 05:52:08 GMT

Animals behave in this way for the same reason that, in other circumstances, they fight or drive each other away: because they or their young gain some advantage.

Is the 'advantage' above a countable-singular or uncountable noun?

Re: Words list like (Information)

Goodman — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:15:55 GMT

Rayan,

âInformationâ, like many uncountable nouns, is always used in singular contexts, although you may see otherwise. You may see âif informations become available â¦â

But what you may not see is âmany informationsâ. Water, sand, salt, air, rain, light, mud, etc. are always used in singular context.

Re: words like (Information)

Mr Wordy — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:43:47 GMT

These are often called "uncountable nouns" (or "mass nouns"). For example, you can count apples -- one apple, two apples, three apples -- but you can't count "informations". There are lots and lots of them in English. Some examples are at http://learning.cl3.ust.hk/english-grammar-guide/Nouns_and_Pronouns/noncount_nouns1x.htm. A longer list is at http://simple.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Mass_nouns. A definitive "complete" list is not feasible.

Edit: Note that a number of nouns can be countable or uncountable, depending on context. To pick an example at random, the Wiktionary list includes "change", which is uncountable in "change is a good thing", but countable in "we need to make some changes".

Please give me your comments about my ideal.

Vincent Wang — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:34:43 GMT

How to identify countable noun and uncountable noun

when I meet a noun, how could I identify it is a countable noun or a uncountable noun. Here is a prefect way. Just imaging that we can split a "noun" with a big knife, then, after we split it, make sure is the piece of "noun" the same thing with the noun before. If the piece of "noun" is the same thing with the original, so the "noun" is uncountable, otherwise, is countable. For example, when we split a car, the half car could not call "car", but we split water, the half water is also water, so, the "car" is countable noun and "water" is uncountable noun.

Re: plural or singular

Mr Wordy — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:52:10 GMT

The price?? (prices??) of ~~the~~ domestic cars went up dramatically. ["the" is not always wrong here, but in most contexts it's not required.]

When talking about general market conditions, the price of cars is acceptable in my view. It's as if "cars" is treated as an uncountable noun (cf. the price of sugar) and it's imagined that there's a generic concept of "price" that somehow applies collectively to all cars. Similarly for other plural nouns: the price of bananas; the price of shoes etc.

In cases when it's clear that you must be referring to individual cars with individual prices, "prices" would be used. For example: I looked at the cars on that dealer's forecourt, but his prices are too high.

Search results for 'tag:Uncountable nouns' matching tag 'Uncountable nouns'

Re: creams and detergents

Re: creams and detergents

Mr. Miclawer,

Nouns only countable nouns can be either singular or plural. ... He had some ice cream on his face. He had an ice cream. mass. countable ...www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/tta/wc/nouns.htm - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080425090142AAom2ui

Answers (4)

Re: creams and detergents

Re: check sentences please

check sentences please

advantage

Re: Words list like (Information)

Re: words like (Information)

Please give me your comments about my ideal.

Re: plural or singular

Nouns only countable nouns can be either singular or plural. ... He had some ice cream on
his face. He had an ice cream. mass. countable ...
www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/tta/wc/nouns.htm - 21k - Cached - Similar pages