Nuances in noncount nouns explained

Human language, as we must have known, defies some logic; and in rules that we have, exceptions are permissible...

Human language, as we must have known, defies some logic; and in rules that we have, exceptions are permissible. As much as I believe that one of the qualities of grammar is its explanatory capacity, and that English teachers, instructors and even linguists must be able to provide some explanation why some grammatical concepts exist as such and others as this or that, I am equally well aware that there are always grey areas.

The concept of non-count nouns in English is one of these grey areas. In our primary and secondary schools, we are being taught that noncount nouns are nouns that we cannot count; they are uncountable.

Examples are rice, beans, clothing, luggage, jewelry, traffic, cutlery, equipment, baggage, air, ice, water, fire, wood, soup, blood, hair, advice, happiness, health, education, feedback, research, knowledge, milk, rice, intelligence, coffee, bread, sugar, meat, water, etc. Please take some time to go through these noncount nouns and commit them to memory.

There are THREE BIG RULES surrounding the use of these noncount nouns: (1) They cannot take a plural marker ‘s’ or ‘es’ informations, advices, cutleries, baggages, meats, breads, feedbacks; (2); they shall not take the indefinite article ‘a’ or ‘an’ before them a sugar, a knowledge, a wood, an advice, a traffic. cc Noncount nouns are generally regarded as singular nouns and as such must attract singular verbs, regardless of the...; (3) Since noncount nouns cannot take the indefinite articles before them, we use partitives to show their unit of quantification, for example, a pint (pronounced /paint/) of blood, two/three pints of blood, two pieces of meat/advice/information, ten glasses of water etc. It is, therefore, expedient of you to find each partitive used with every noncount noun you use.

However, as we grow old(er) and take much closer look at the nuances of grammar, we realize that this isn’t the case. We come up with several reasons and advance some argument why this definition would never suffice. Firstly, we see that we can indeed count some of these noncount nouns (like beans, rice, wood, bread), technically though. For instance, if one is terribly jobless, one can sit down with a bowl of beans and count the number of beans in it, and I think you can remember when (y)our moms used to count the meats in their pots of soup. LOL…

Here is what Susie Edwards, a long-time linguist, has to say:

The Oxford English Dictionary also tells us that names of cereals, both ancient and modern, are mass, or collective (uncountable) nouns in English. There is one exception to this pattern — oats. According to the OED, the singular oat, which is rarely used because there’s not a lot you can do with a single oat, probably originally referred to the individual grain, not the crop or produce of the plant, as in the case of rye, wheat, corn etc. Rice fits into this latter group, and is hence regarded as uncountable.

Susie Edwards

Secondly, some nouns can both be count and noncount. In this case, they express slightly different meanings. Examples are philosophy/philosophies, fruit/fruits, beauty/beauties, work/works, time/times, juice/juices, light/lights, hair/hairs, room/rooms, gear/gears, art/arts, science/sciences, intelligence/intelligences etc.

For example:

1. Obalolu’s and Halimat’s philosophies (worldviews) are totally different.

2. One of my dear friends, Sulaimon, is reading philosophy (course of study) at the University of Ibadan.

3. I have some work (activity involving mental or physical effort) to do at home.

4. I decided to get a work (a job).

5. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s works (a literary or musical composition or other piece of art) have been widely read across the world.

It is, therefore, expedient of you to get conversant with these nuances.

ALSO READ: The madness called English language by Ganiu Bamgbose

Thirdly, there are some determiners that can be used with both count and noncount nouns. Examples are some, all, this, most, a lot of, lots of, enough, more etc. For example, we can have most men/most information, a lot of sugar/a lot of students, this advice/this car. The only observable difference here is that we have the count nouns pluralized (in ‘men’ and ‘students’) and the noncount nouns which exist in their singular forms after the determiners. However, there are determiners (e.g a little, little, much) that must be strictly used ONLY with noncount nouns.

In conclusion, as I have always told my UTME/PUTME students at TBOSE Tutorial, and also my first and second year students at the University of Ibadan, these differences are crucial to understanding the robust usage of nouns and words, and they affect the meanings we dispense with our friends and families.

Yours in English,

Francis