Tuesday 14 December 2010

Beware of Uncountable Nouns

Some nouns in English are uncountable. In other words, they are not used with a or an and do not have plural forms. This is typically the case with abstract or conceptual nouns, such as information, litigation, training, advice.

With the word ‘information’, for instance, you cannot write, ‘we have received an information’; nor can you write, ‘we have received some informations’. You can, however, write:

We have received some information.
OR
We have received several pieces of information.

In other words, you can either use the conceptual word in a general singular sense (‘some information’) or you can pluralise it using an auxiliary word (i.e. ‘pieces’ in ‘pieces of information’).

In legal contexts it is often possible to find an alternative countable word. For instance, while it is wrong to write, ‘the company has been involved in several litigations’, it would be perfectly acceptable to write that the company has been involved in several cases, claims, lawsuits etc.