Uncountable Nouns (a Reminder)

I think everyone remembers that some nouns are countable like pencils, books, apples and cars.

We need to remember that uncountable nouns can not have a plural form, unless their form is plural to begin with. Then they don't have a singular form.

Countable Nouns:

apple...1 apple...2 apples

book...1 book ...2 books

pencil...1 pencil...2 pencils

car... 1 car... 2 cars

Uncountable Nouns:

water...We can't count it. We have some water, less water or more water.

rice...We can't count rice. We can have some rice, more, less, a lot or a little rice.

information... I've got some information. How much, a lot? I have a little information. I need more information.

Remember, If you can't count it it doesn't have a plural form.

I can have information, I can't have informations.

If it is countable I can say give me another one. If it is not countable I would say give me some more.

A good trick to help you remember is to try to count something and if it isn't countable, you should not try to make it a plural.

So, lets take these examples and you test yourself. I have done the first one for you, with the word boy:

boy ... one boy____ ...two boys____ So we see boy is countable.

minute ... one _______ ... two ________ Can I count minutes?

money ... one _______ ... two ________ Can I say give me two money?

salt ... one _______ ... two ________

cat ... one _______ ... two ________

electricity... one _______ ... two ________

progress... one _______ ... two ________

baby ... one _______ ... two ________

There is more to countable and uncountable nouns than I covered here. This is just a reminder about another one of those things in English that can cause you to make a mistake. If you speak English some saying these words in your head may help you to see if a noun makes sense if you try to count it. Happy writing and keep on learning. :)

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Comments

nida July 10, 2014 19:30

Thank you so much for such a useful reminder, Sir.

I always wondered why sheep, fish and deer were uncountable nouns. Your reply to Rysperki solved this mystery for me.

Thank you so much for always helping us with learning English. You're indeed our very kind teacher. :)
Mr. Bob July 9, 2014 5:22

I need to revise this to clarify that those uncountable nouns like police and pants which may be plural in form do not have a singular form. If it is uncountable it only has one form, as far as I can remember. Most will be singular only, but a few will be plural only. If you have questions about a certain uncountable noun, I will be happy to answer it.
Mr. Bob July 8, 2014 2:30

Well Kiriku, you aren't alone. This confuses many people. We do have a few plural uncountable nouns but they can't have a singular form. Pants, police, groceries, and some others are used in the plural form. To discuss a quantity of these requires more words. We have police as a plural but not "a police". We have groceries but don't buy a grocery. We can talk about a pair of scissors or pants. We can't really say one pants or one scissors. These can be found in lists in books or on the web.
April July 7, 2014 17:43

I would like to see more about plural uncountable nouns, they are so confusing to me. Anyways thank you for a useful blog.
Mr. Bob July 7, 2014 15:50

As for hair I can find a hair in my soup or see three hairs on her chin. When I get my hair cut we are normally talking about all of them but I could cut just one. Trout, bream, bass and salmon are more fish and very much countable. You just have to determine if they are singular or plural by the context. I talked about some rice or some water as used with those uncountable nouns. Some can also be used with plural countable nouns. I caught some trout. Bring some people with you. He shot the deer and we saw some deer. It can get confusing.
Mr. Bob July 7, 2014 15:42

Hi Rysperski. Sheep and fish are countable as well as deer. They just do not change form when we write the plural. A sheep, four sheep, three fish, two deer, another deer and a fish are all countable but the singular is the same as the plural.
rysperski July 7, 2014 15:35

Oi there,

Yes, the countable - uncountable nouns issue can be sometimes quite confusing. I have some personal doubt if "baby" is a genuinly a countable noun.... in some country they seem to be totally uncoubtable. LOL...just kidding!

But speaking seriously, some nouns in the singular r actually plurals and are refered as uncountable nouns - fish, sheep, hair - as an axample of many of this kind, yet they become countable if there is a numeral before them, for example:

That guy isn't completely bald, he's still got three hairs.... [what do you guys think about this type of nouns with numerals, do they become countable nouns?]
Mr. Bob July 7, 2014 15:31

As I said there is a lot more to the topic. Thank you Expector and Ina for your examples and comments. I think I like the rules for Malay. They sound easier for plurals anyway.
Expector Smith July 7, 2014 14:13

Some plural nouns can be so confusing, such as: spirits, thoughts, waters...especially those nouns that seem to be uncountable nouns.
noaslpls July 7, 2014 13:30

I always wrote 'advices', until Tara pointed it out to in one of my blogs. Another thing that always confuse me was 'on the other hand' which I always wrote as 'on the other hands'. And logically, we can count 'hair' (if we don't have any other things to do in whole wide world), so I always thought it should be 'hairs'. Alas... too many things making me confused.

In Malay, we just add 'banyak - more' or just make the word 'double' such as 'budak - kid', 'budak-budak = kids' to indicate plural.

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