define your destination: an English lesson

what is a countable or uncountable noun?

I recently read a book I found incredibly interesting by Bill Bryson called "The Mother Tongue." As I have struggled to explain many things in our language and have had to learn quite a bit of English myself. Why does it sound weird to say, "How much chairs?" or "How many milk in your coffee?" Thats because of countable and uncountable nouns. "How many" goes along with items, people, etc that you can physically count- chairs, groups, tickets, students, idiots, players, teachers, scoops, etc and "How much" goes with uncountable nouns, amounts etc like milk, water, sugar, flour, time, etc. The more English I have learned this year, the crazier it is to me. A highly recommended read. Here are a few of my favorite quotes (with numbers and facts slightly outdated). As I will be going to London for FIVE days this weekend for an English lesson, I thought this was appropriate. Enjoy!

I can think of two very good reasons for not splitting an infinitive.

1. Because you feel that the rules of English ought to conform to the grammatical precepts of a language that died a thousand years ago.

2. Because you wish to cling to a pointless affectation of usage that is without the support of any recognized authority of the last 200 years, even at the cost of composing sentences that are ambiguous, inelegant and patently contorted.

(speaking on the 1961 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary dictionary) But what really excited outrage was its remarkable contention that ain’t was “used orally in most parts of the U.S by many cultivated speakers”

A dictionary will tell you that tall and high mean much the same thing but it won’t explain to you that while you can apply either term to a building you can apply only tall to a person. On the strength of dictionary definitions alone a foreign visitor to your home could be excused for telling you that you have an abnormal child, that your wife’s cooking is exceedingly odorous, and that your speech at a recent sales conference was laughable, and intend nothing but the warmest praise.

At the turn of the century, words were being added at the time of about 1,000 per year. Now, according to a report in the New York Times (April, 3, 1989), the increase is closer to 5,000 to 20,000 a year.

(on British vs American English) In common speech, some 4,000 words are used differently in one country from the other.

There are more people learning English in China than there are people in the United States. The teaching of English, according to The Economist, is worth 6 billion (pounds) a year globally.

Source: pages.mapsofworld.com via Patricia on Pinterest