What is the name for nouns that aren’t really plurals but can’t normally be pluralized? For example, you can’t speak of “five waters,” you have to talk about it in measurements, such as “five liters of water.”
I think I know what you’re talking about, but what if you were talking about five different kinds of water?
I believe you are talking about mass nouns (as opposed to count nouns):
Then you would have to say “five different kinds of water.”
The only context I’ve heard thus far where it really makes sense is if you’re referring to a bottle of water as “a water,” and say “gimme five waters.” But still, that seems a bit anomolous to me.
Wahoo! You’re my personal hero for at least the next 24 hours, Scarlett67.
Just send two pounds of chocolate to Tara and we’re square.
I walk into McDonald’s (note, not in real life): “I’d like five, medium waters, please.”
Two beers please.
New Insoles Combine Five Forms of Pseudoscience
okay that’s probably enough of that.
In my local pub thats known as:
"A pair of Britneys"
Jokes aside, Scarlett67 is correct. Mass and count nouns are the two kinds and their grammar (whether and what kinds of articles and other “determiners” are allowed is rather different. That said, all–or nearly all–mass nouns are at least occasionally used as count nouns. Pease was once a mass noun and was redefined (and respelled) as a count noun. Rice is a mass noun, but who knows, maybe in two centuries, it will be a plural of a count noun rouse :). That joke appears in Steven Pinker’s Words and Rules, but he didn’t invent it. A colleague of mine who once taught Pinker a course in mathematical linguistics did.
Determiners are article-like words that modify nouns but are not considered adjectives. Such as “this”, “that”, “these”, “those”, all possesive pronouns (which are not really pronouns since they are not standing in place of a noun) and the articles.
A pair of Britneys? I don’t get it.
:o
RR
[hint]
Think rhyming slang!
[/hint]
Dukey: What kind of idiot do you think I am?
Toadey: I don’t know; how many kinds are there?
Sorry.
How about in the context of an expression like “the waters of the Missouri”? And I’m willing to bet that some Consumer Reports type publication comparing various brands of bottled water might say something like “Of all the waters we tested, our panel thought Sumppump Springs tasted the best.”.
Agreed that “mass nouns” are what the OP is after, but there are circumstances where one might reasonably say “waters”.
Great thread, boys and girls. Thank you Scarlett. Thanks, Attryant. Kudos to all. Even me. xo
Also, I’m also dense as to the two beers thing, although I saw some humor in reducing Britney to an object of enjoyement. rhyming? ?
Absolutely. M-W’s 3rd Unabridged gives “waters” its own definition under “water” to apply in cases such as “the waters of the Missouri.”
As for “the waters we tested” or “four waters for Table 7,” I think what we have here is an idiom or ellipsis; what is really being said is “brands of water” or “bottles of water.” I’m not sure I’d allow it in the most formal writing, but it’s fine for speech and informal writing, IMHO.
[quick introduction to Cockney Rhyming Slang]
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Take a word that you want to convert, e.g. wife.
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Find a word that rhymes with it, e.g. strife.
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Combine the word chosen in 2) above with something to make an expression, e.g. struggle and strife
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Take away the aforementioned rhyming word and you are left with struggle. Thus struggle = wife.
The problem of converting beers into Britneys will be your home assignment.
[/quick introduction to Cockney Rhyming Slang]
Well, I can go from beers to spears to Brittney Spears to 2 beers = 2 Brittneys. If that’s right, I didn’t miss any humor. It wasn’t designed to have any. Just interest. thanks again.
In re: the OP: my high school senior English teacher called them “collective nouns.”