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Written June 15,  2010

Non-Count Nouns

(This page is an introduction to this topic. I am preparing a more detailed page which will appear on this website soon.)

Introduction

Many people make mistakes with non-count nouns (= uncountable nouns = mass nouns), (不可数名词).

There are actually two different types of nouns that people incorrectly use in the plural form:

A) Non-Count Nouns and,

B) Countable Group Nouns

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A) Non-Count Nouns

Here is a short list of some of the words that people most commonly incorrectly use in the plural form:

You also cannot say, "an advice", "a furniture" or "an equipment" etc. because "a" and "an" mean "one", which is counting.

Some uncountable words are used in the plural form when they have different meaning to the usual meaning. For example, "works" means "pieces of literary, musical or other artistic creation". "Works" is also used as part of some compound words to mean, "a place", such as "a steelworks" ( a factory where steel is made) and "a waterworks" ( a place where water is pumped and supplied to a district).

Some other uncountable nouns are used in the plural when the meaning is, "specific types (or specific examples) of this noun". For example, the noun, "grass" is uncountable in the usual usage. So, if you want to say “很多草” in English, you say, "a lot of grass", "lots of grass", "plenty of grass" or, more formally, "much grass". We don't say, "many grasses". However, you can say something such as this, "This scientist has studied many different grasses (= many different types of grass)."

Another frequent example of this type of error is this: "I can't find a job because I haven't had any work experiences". This plural form is incorrect because the speaker does not mean, "specific examples of experience"; the speaker is just talking about "experience in general" or "experience in totality". However, the following example is correct: "I went to Africa and had many interesting and exciting experiences. For example, once a lion came within ten metres of me when I was taking photographs in Kenya."

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B) Countable Group Nouns

This group of nouns can be used in the plural form but many people use the plural form when they really mean, "the members of this one group".

For example, the word, "family" is a "group noun" and it is correct to say, "Many families live in this town." The mistake that people make is to say things such as, "My families all know how to play a musical instrument" when they should say, "The members of my family all know how to play a musical instrument." In other words, don't use the plural form of the group name when you really mean the members of this one group.

Here is a short list of some countable group nouns that are incorrectly used in this way:

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