Uncountable Nouns: Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

FITNESS CENTER
All New Equipments

When Bo hung this sign near the entrance of his apartment community’s fitness center, he thought it looked fine. But much to his surprise, one of the tenants informed him that “equipments” was grammatically incorrect.

“It’s supposed to be equipment, without the ‘s’ at the end,” the tenant told Bo.

That didn’t sound right to Bo. He asked the tenant to explain why “equipments” was wrong.

“I just know it’s wrong,” the tenant replied. “I don’t know why!”

Fortunately, here at TextRanch, we do know why “equipments” is incorrect. With most nouns, we add “-s” or “-es” when we want to pluralize them. Thus, “apple” becomes “apples”, “dress” becomes “dresses”, and “restaurant” becomes “restaurants”. So to Bo, “equipments” made sense. He was just following the rules of English grammar, right?

Well, yes, Bo was following the rules of English grammar when it comes to regular, countable nouns. But “equipment” is an uncountable noun. It follows a different set of rules. In this article, we will show you how these rules work.

What are uncountable nouns?

Before we go any further, let’s take a closer look at what an uncountable noun is. As the name suggests, uncountable nouns are things that cannot be separated or counted as individual units. Instead, we think of them as a whole. For that reason, uncountable nouns are always singular and it is incorrect to put “-s” or “-es” at the end like Bo did.

Here are some common examples of uncountable nouns that you might see in different contexts:

General / everyday English

• water
• food
• dust
• fog
• furniture
• happiness
• magic
• money
• music
• smoke
• sunshine
• wine
• traffic

Business / Professional English

• advice
• assistance
• availability
• equipment
• feedback
• hardware
• information
• inventory
• progress
• software
• support
• storage

Academic English

• research
• evidence
• data
• knowledge
• literature
• logic

The names of most academic fields and subjects are also uncountable–chemistry, geography, biology, and psychology. Physics, linguistics, and mathematics are also uncountable nouns, even though these words have an “s” at the end. A student takes a course in “physics”, not “physic”.

 

How do you express quantity with uncountable nouns?

Let’s go back to Bo’s situation. Since “equipments” isn’t correct, what word should he use? How can you adjust an uncountable noun when you want to show the amount or degree of that noun?

1. Use quantifiers

Words like “plenty”, “much”, “more”, “less”, and “a lot of” can help you express how much of something is present.

• We have plenty of equipment at the fitness center.
• I could use a little help with this project.
• Do you have more data on the Hilltop Community Schools’ test scores?
• Kathy hates driving down High Street because there is always too much traffic.
• Ravi’s teacher reported that he needs less assistance with his reading assignments than he did last semester.

Pro Tip: Sometimes writers try to use “fewer” with uncountable nouns, but “fewer” is only correct with countable nouns. The correct word to use with uncountable nouns is “less”. Click here for more details.

2. Use partitive expressions, or units

These phrases are useful when you want to transform an uncountable noun into something you can count:

• This area of the fitness center has enough space for two pieces of equipment.
• May I have a bottle of wine and a slice of bread, please?
• We need to order three sets of furniture for the new office suite.
• Professor Seger listed seven works of literature on the syllabus.
• How many bodies of water are in this region? (Note how you can answer this question with a number.)

3. Just use the uncountable noun by itself

In Bo’s case, “equipment” is the right choice. It doesn’t need to be modified or quantified. Since he is writing the word on a sign, it’s better to be brief instead of using a lengthy phrase like “all new pieces of equipment”.

How do articles work with uncountable nouns?

As we mentioned here, articles can be tricky, especially with uncountable nouns. First and foremost, you cannot use “a” or “an” right before an uncountable noun.

If you’re referring to a noun in the general sense, use “some”:

• Gus and his crew moved some inventory into the warehouse.
• Lien has some information about the ABC account.
• Would you like to hear some music?
• Can you give me some advice on how to update my resume?

Use “the” when both the speaker and listener know what you’re referring to:

• The equipment has already been delivered to the fitness center.
• Clara finished doing the research for her final paper, but she is still writing it.
• We need to update the software.

Use a unit expression with “a” or “an”:

• One of my older colleagues have me a piece of advice about how to get a promotion.
• This photo shows a ray of sunshine coming down from the sky.
• The police found a ton of evidence against Tom.
• We only had an inch of snow last night.
• Lowell agreed to take care of the property in exchange for a sum of money.

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Bo ended up taking down his sign and putting up a new one with “equipment” in place of “equipments”. Meanwhile, the residents at the apartment complex have continued to enjoy using the fitness center.

Although we’ve covered a lot of information in this article, the English language has many more uncountable nouns than the ones mentioned here. So if you run into any trouble, click the blue box below. Our TextRanch editors will be happy to help you with uncountable nouns and a whole lot more!