4. Uncountable nouns

A.1. Names of substances considered generally:

bread coffee dust glass ice oil paper soap water wood etc.

2. Abstract nouns:

advice experience horror pity

beauty fear information relief

courage help knowledge suspicion

death hope mercy work

3. Also considered uncountable in English:

accommodation furniture scenery shopping

baggage luggage traffic weather

behaviour permission travel

camping parking work

B. Uncountable nouns are always singular and are not used with a/an. These nouns are often preceded by some, any, no, a little etc. or by nouns such as bit, piece, slice etc. + of:

a bit of news a grain of sand

a bar(cake) of soap a piece of advice

a drop of oil a sheet of paper

C. Many of these nouns can be used either countable or uncountable but with some difference in meaning:

paper I bought a paper (=a newspaper).

I bought some paper to write on.

hair There’s a hair in my soup! (=one single hair)

She has beautiful hair.

experience We had many interesting experiences during our holiday. (=things that happened to us)

You need experience for this job. (=knowledge of

something because you have done it before)

D. Remember these things:

travel only has a general meaning (‘the activity of travelling in general’); a particular movement from one place to another is called a journey or a trip:

I like travel. but How was your journey?

Note these pairs of countable and uncountable nouns:

I’m looking for a job. I’m looking for work.

What a lovely view! What lovely scenery!

5. Possessive case

A. Form

1.’s is used with singular nouns and irregular plural nouns (i.e. not ending in s):

a man’s job men’s job

a woman’s intuition women’s intuition

a child’s room children’s room

the butcher’s (shop), the people’s choice

2. An apostrophe (’) only is used with plural nouns ending in s:

a girls’ school the parents’ house the Smiths’ car

3. Classical names ending in s usually add only the apostrophe: Archimedes’ Law Sophocles’ plays

4. Other names ending in s can take ’s or the apostrophe alone:

Yeats’s (or Yeats’) poems

5. With compounds, the last word takes the ’s:

my sister-in-law’s parents

6. ’s may be added not only to a single word but to a whole group of words:

Henry the Eighth’s wives

Mr and Mrs Smith’s children

the Prime Minister of England’s residence

7. ’s can also be used after initials:

the MP’s speech the VIP’s escort

B.Use of the possessive case

The possessive case can be used in several different ways: to talk about possession, relationship, physical features and characteristics, non-physical qualities, and measurements.

It is chiefly used of people, animals and countries. But it can be also used:

1. Of ships and boats: the ship’s bell

2. In time expressions: a week’s holiday today’s paper

in two years’ time tomorrow’s weather

ten minutes’ break two hours’ delay

a ten-minute break, a two-hour delay are also possible, but with another punctuation: We have ten minutes’ break / a ten-minute break.

3. In expressions of money + worth:

$1’s worth of stamps ten pounds’ worth of ice-cream

4. With for + noun + sake: for heaven’s sake for goodness’ sake

5. In some set phrases:

a pin’s head journey’s end a needle’s point duty’s call

6. Sometimes certain nouns can be used in the possessive case without the second noun which usually denotes a building (a school, a church, a hospital, a house, a shop, an office, a surgery etc.):

You can buy it at the chemist’s. He went to the dentist’s.

Names of the owners of some businesses can be used in the same way:

Sotheby’s Claridge’s

But some very well-known shops call themselves without the apostrophe: Harrods.

7. Names of people can be used similarly to mean ‘....’s house’:

We’ll have a party at Bill’s.

8. Possessive case can be used as a pronoun, with no following noun (with the same kind of meaning as mine, yours, etc.):

‘Whose is that?’ - ‘Virginia’s’

Escalation is neither in Russia’s interests nor in the West’s.

9. Double possessive.

Note the special construction: of + possessive

He’s a friend of my father’s.(=one of my father’s friends)

He turned up wearing an old coat of Patrick’s.

In other cases it is safer to use of + noun construction.

C. of + noun is used for possession

1. When the possessor noun is followed by a phrase or clause:

I met the wife of the man who lent us the money.

(the underlined expression is too long to be followed be ’s)

2. With inanimate ‘possessors’, except those listed in A above:

the walls of the town the roof of the church

However, it is often possible to replace these expressions by the others:

the town walls the church roof

The first noun becomes an adjective and cannot be plural:

the roofs of the churches = the church roofs

Unfortunately these replacements are not always possible so it is recommended to use of when in doubt.