Definition three needs a little more work. Superm401 22:31, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree. More understandable examples need to be given.
Puzzled
editThis has me puzzled:
- Describes a noun that cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, for example wine, water or sand
I have tasted many wines. Any one is a wine. Also I have tasted many waters etc, and handled many sands. 212.219.203.12 11:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC).
- Indeed, nouns that can't be pluralized are rare. Like in the above instances, most uncountable nouns aren't strictly uncountable, but in general don't take any plural form when one excludes such cases. — Vildricianus 11:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
- Countability refers to a specific sense of the noun. For "wine", the uncountable sense (about which the "wine" entry isn't terribly clear) is that of the alcoholic liquid substance. The countable sense used in "I have tasted many wines" is, "a specific vintage of the substance known as wine". Does that clear it up at all? Rod (A. Smith) 21:41, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
- I think a better example would be the noun information: I have information. I have no information. These are both sensible, but never these: I have informations. I have an information. I have one information. I have 15 informations. 207.235.66.3 17:51, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
- There is a legal sense of the word information which takes a plural. I would hope that this fact about the protoypical uncountable noun would give folks pause. Almost all of the "mass nouns", 'X', often deemed uncountable, usually have a sense "type, grade, or instance of 'X'" that is countable. I can very often find usage of these senses. There certainly are many words that have senses that are truly uncountable. Folks often think of abstract nouns like Marxism or words that seem to semantically be singular (the Absolute, uniqueness, God) as only having a singular. Scholarly literature is full of comparisons of various types, concepts and versions of these that contain the words "Marxisms", "Absolutes", "uniquenesses", and "Gods". Are they rare? Certainly in everyday speech (if they come up even in the singular in everyday speech). DCDuring TALK 01:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Usage note
editSimilarly to mass noun, I'd specify that mass nouns form plurals only in the sense of ‘a type/quantity of …’, and some words are countable in certain meanings, e.g. paper. --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:19, 13 October 2021 (UTC)