Your
Native English Teacher's thought of the day:
Why do people learning English have such a difficult time with singular vs plural? It’s because nouns come in 2 varieties:
count and noncount. How we deal with a noun to make it singular or plural varies between the two categories.
Count nouns are what you would expect, objects that can be counted. They come in singular and plural form and are made up of such things as monkeys, cars, or those little dust bunnies that slowly invade and conquer your hall closet. Just add -s and voila! You have made your noun plural.
Noncount are nouns that can't be counted. You can't add a number to the front, or an s to the end. This group is made up of things like water, sand, and milk.
Noncount nouns do not have a singular or a plural form.
In a sentence, a noncount noun is treated like a singular noun and uses the verb form for singular nouns.
A and an cannot be used with noncount nouns. However, when noncount nouns represent a collection or a mass, they may be preceded by a phrase that indicates quantity, such as: a lot of, a little, some, much, any.
Example: I like some ketchup on my hot dog.
(Not: I like a ketchup on my hot dog.)
So how does a person know? A
Native English Teacher will encourage students to try and work out if a noun is count or noncount by thinking about it. Like I mentioned, count nouns are usually objects which can be counted. Noncount nouns are often substances that can’t be easily counted, or they may be large abstract ideas such as nature, space or entertainment. Of course this is English, and an exception exists for every rule.
The list below illustrates the different types of noncount nouns. Remember that these categories include both noncount and count nouns. For example, lightning, a natural event, is noncount, but hurricane, a similar event, is count.
When you don't know what type of noun you have, consult a dictionary that provides such information.
Category ExamplesAbstractions: advice, courage, enjoyment, fun, help, honesty, information, intelligence, knowledge, patience, etc.
Activities: chess, homework, housework, music, reading, singing, sleeping, soccer, tennis, work, etc.
Food: beef, bread, butter, fish, macaroni, meat, popcorn, pork, poultry, toast, etc.
Gases: air, exhaust, helium, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, pollution, smog, smoke, steam, etc.
Groups of similar items: baggage, clothing, furniture, hardware, luggage, equipment, mail, money, software, vocabulary, etc.
Liquids: blood, coffee, gasoline, milk, oil, soup, syrup, tea, water, wine, etc.
Natural events: electricity, gravity, heat, humidity, moonlight, rain, snow, sunshine, thunder, weather, etc.
Materials: aluminum, asphalt, chalk, cloth, concrete, cotton, glue, lumber, wood, wool, etc.
Particles or grains: corn, dirt, dust, flour, hair, pepper, rice, salt, sugar, wheat, etc.
Having a strong command of the use of singular vs. plural is an important aspect of transforming your writing to fluent prose, and feeling confident in the use of English in a
buisness environment.
