Selected uncountable nouns and their countable equivalents

Some uncountables cannot be used as countables to refer to a single item or example. A quite different word must be used:

uncountable	equivalent countable
bread	a loaf
laughter	a laugh
luggage	a case, a bag
poetry	a poem

Nouns for animals are countable; nouns for meat are uncountable: a cow/beef a deer/venison a pig/pork, a sheep/mutton.

A number of nouns which are countable in other languages (and are therefore used in the singular and plural in those languages) are usually uncountable in English (and therefore not normally used with a/an or in the plural). A few common examples are: baggage, furniture, information, macaroni, machinery, spaghetti [> App 4]:

We bought (some) new furniture for our living room recently

I'd like some information please.

Appendix 4

Nouns not normally countable in English: accommodation, advice, anger, applause, assistance, baggage, behaviour, bread, business (= trade), capital (= money), cardboard, cash, chaos, chess, china, clothing, coal, conduct, cookery, countryside, courage, crockery, cutlery, damage, dancing, dirt, education, evidence, flu, food, fruit, fun, furniture, garbage, gossip (= talk about other people), grass, hair (hairs = separate strands of hair, hair = all the hairs on the head), happiness, harm, help, homework, hospitality, housework, information, jealousy, jewellery, knowledge, laughter, leisure, lightning, linen, luck, luggage, macaroni, machinery, meat, money, moonlight, mud, music, news, nonsense, parking, patience, peel, permission, poetry, the post (= letters), produce, progress, rubbish, safety, scaffolding, scenery, seaside, sewing, shopping, smoking, soap, spaghetti, spelling, steam, strength, stuff, stupidity, sunshine, thunder, timber, toast (= bread), traffic, transport, travel, underwear, violence, vocabulary, wealth, weather, work, writing

Partitives: nouns which refer to part of a whole

We can refer to a single item (a loaf of bread), a part of a whole (a slice of bread) or a collection of items (a packet of biscuits) by means of partitives. Partitives are useful when we want to refer to specific pieces of an uncountable substance, or to a limited number of countable items. They can be singular (a piece of paper; a box of matches) or plural (two pieces of paper; two boxes of matches) and are followed by ‘of' when used before a noun.

Words such as piece and (less formal) bit can be used with a large number of uncountables (concrete or abstract): singular: a piece of/bit of chalk/cloth/information/meat/plastic plural: pieces of/bits of chalk/cloth/information/meat/plastic.

Appendix 5

5.1 Partitives: specific items or amounts:

a bar of chocolate/soap, a block of cement, a book of matches/stamps, a cake of soap, a cloud of dust, a flash of lightning, a head of hair, an item of news, a jet of water, a loaf of bread, a peal of thunder, a pile of earth, a portion of food, a roll of paper, a slice of meat

5.2 Partitives: 'containers':

a barrel of beer, a basket of fruit, a bottle of milk, a can of beer, a carton of cigarettes, a flask of tea, a glass of water, a jug of water, a mug of cocoa, a tin of soup, a vase of flowers

5.3 Partitives: small quantities:

a blade of grass, a breath of air, a crust of bread, a dash of soda, a grain of rice, a lock of hair, a pat of butter, a scrap of paper

5.4 Partitives: measures:

a gallon of petrol, a length of cloth, a litre of oil an ounce of gold a pint of milk, a pound of coffee, a spoonful of medicine, a yard of cloth

5.5 Partitives: 'a game of:

billiards, bridge, cards, chess, cricket, darts, squash, table-tennis, tennis, volleyball

5.6 Partitives: abstract:

a bit of advice, a branch of knowledge, a fit of anger, a piece of research, a spot of trouble

5.7 Partitives: types/species:

a brand of soap, a kind of biscuit, a species of insect, a type of drug, a variety of pasta

5.8 Partitives: 'a pair of:

boots, braces, glasses, knickers, pants, pliers, pyjamas/pajamas, scissors, shears, shoes, shorts, skates, skis, slippers, socks, stockings, tights, tongs, trousers