Blue_Belle wrote:

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What is an uncountable noun? Genuinely interested.

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 It's a noun you can't put a number in front of, like flour. You can't say I'll have two flours, you have to use another noun if you want to specify a number: like two bags of flour. You can, however, say two biscuits, so biscuits is a countable noun.

The word surgery has evolved from being a uncountable noun, to sometimes being used interchangeably with operations, but it was originally used only in sentences like, I'm going to have surgery on my leg. If you had two lots of surgery, you'd have said e.g. I need two operations on my leg. 

And I'm sure old-fashioned (but correct ) English teachers would also add:

You use 'less' in front of uncountable nouns

and 'fewer' in front of countable nouns

i.e. less flour but fewer bags of flour

Which leads to the 'big debate' about supermarkets that have signs saying: 'If you have less than 5 items, use this till'

It has to be 'if you have fewer than 5 items, use this till'

(unless you think this is just ridiculously hyper-correct and only for boring old pedants )

I try hard not to be - and I honestly like the idea that we should go with the flow, and let things evolve etc etc etc - I try and tell myself to not be so ridiculously picky - but when push comes to shove, I still think why can't people 'say it right' ???

1980's as a plural just kills me, for instance, and it's so common, I need to learn to chill about it, but it ain't easy

(not making a distintion between, for instance, 'the boy's clothes' and 'the boys' clothes' is another one)

JonH comes home wrote:

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Im a go with the flow type of guy - life is too short!

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I'm just grammatically challenged

Didn't really learn any grammar in school and if I am honest, I have learnt more about grammar through learning Spanish than I ever did when growing up.

Bob in Spain wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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Im a go with the flow type of guy - life is too short!

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I'm just grammatically challenged

Didn't really learn any grammar in school and if I am honest, I have learnt more about grammar through learning Spanish than I ever did when growing up.

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Same with me, except that it was learning German that really opened my eyes.  Then grasping the principles of the subjunctive in A Level French made mastering Spanish, in which it more common, a piece of cake. 

Stircrazy wrote:

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Nix wrote:

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Blue_Belle wrote:

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What is an uncountable noun? Genuinely interested.

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 It's a noun you can't put a number in front of, like flour. You can't say I'll have two flours, you have to use another noun if you want to specify a number: like two bags of flour. You can, however, say two biscuits, so biscuits is a countable noun.

The word surgery has evolved from being a uncountable noun, to sometimes being used interchangeably with operations, but it was originally used only in sentences like, I'm going to have surgery on my leg. If you had two lots of surgery, you'd have said e.g. I need two operations on my leg. 

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Thank you, Nix.  I couldn't have put it better myself, though I would add that the test often used to distinguish between countable & uncountable nouns is whether you can put "a/an" in front of them.  That said, those who now regard "surgery" as a synonym for "operation" would doubtless argue that it is countable...

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 Thank you both for your explanations. Very interesting.