We’re speaking about English, remember?

It’s time to take out our dictionaries – hard-bound, soft-bound, or electronic. We will be using an online version, from Longman’s Dictionary of American English.

We’ll begin with an easy noun:  the noun, advice. You can click on the hyperlink or you can see below:

This noun has one definition, and right away the dictionary listing says [uncountable].

That was easy.  So now we know that this noun has NO plural form and that the verb we use should be in a singular form. We also know to NOT use an article (a and an) before this noun.

So how do we count this noun, then? How do we quantify it?  Look at the example “a piece/word of advice“.  This would be the standard way of counting items of advice.

Just yesterday a friend offered me some advice that I did not solicit. I said to her, “Did I ask you for advice?” She said “No” and that part of the conversation ended, and the topic was changed.  Thus, grammatically, you see there was no article (a or an) used before the noun, which is correct for an uncountable noun.

Be sure, with looking up any word, in particular a noncountable noun, to see if the dictionary gives you any suggestions for how to quantify this noun.

We’ll stop here for today, at this easy place.

But there are many nouns that have both a countable and an uncountable form, such as the noun “change”! What about those?  In our next blog post, we will answer the question, “How (Do We Know) If a Noun Has a Countable and an Uncountable Form?”

You wanted an easy answer, didn’t you!  Sorry, I can’t give it to you!  You’re learning English!

Let’s say you are learning a new word.  A new noun.  The reasonable thing to assume that it is a regular noun, and that it is a countable noun and has a plural form.  As a rule, the plural form of a noun is constructed by adding an ~s or ~es to the singular form.

In most cases, that would work. But that’s where you may get into Grammar Trouble-ville.

So let’s do some research.  Let’s  look up a new word in a dictionary.

I looked up the word “man“  in my beloved little Webster’s Dictionary that I’ve had since I was a child.  It indicated man. n.; pl. MEN .  I next turned to my Longman Dictionary of American English that I’ve just taken off of the shelf for this purpose.  Right after the main word “man” was a note indicating its part of speech:  “n“  (for noun) and then “men”. So we’re good in both dictionaries, right from the beginning.  We learn the plural form for the noun man is men.

Now I tried this on an online Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English .  Go ahead; click on “man 1 noun”.

Right here it says “man plural men“. That’s it! This is a countable noun that has an irregular plural form.

I next tried the common (singular) noun “person“.  My little Webster’s Dictionary didn’t say anything about its plural form (“people”).  Might this mean that the plural of person is persons?  My Longman Dictionary of American English (very helpful for learners of English) had, after all the definitions, at the very end of the entry, a “USAGE” note:  “The usual plural of person is people.”  You see, there is a plural form of person: persons, but its meaning is not our standard one:  We would not say “I saw many persons in the park.”  The form persons tends to be legalistic and mathematical.

I tried Longman’s  online dictionary: 
This tells us “person [countable].  Now it gives us the first “1” common definition:  MALE PERSON [countable}. So now we know we can say “There were many people looking for work.”

Let’s scroll down a little further, to definition #4:

“4 plural persons” And we see this has a different meaning and use, as I wrote above, a more formal use.

So let’s practice and look up the word “woman“:  We find woman n women. That tells us the singular is woman, the word is a noun, and the plural is women.

As a rule, the plural form of a noun is constructed by adding an ~s or ~es to the singular form.

How about working this backwards !

Let’s look up “women“. In a hard copy dictionary, we see nothing there!  Dictionaries will not list the plural form of a word in its listings. So if this occurs to you, then you will have to figure out what its singular form is.  Either put on your thinking cap, or consult a grammar book.

Or look online: and there it is!

Now suppose you look up the word “change” – referring to the coins such as quarters, dimes, nickles and pennies.  The next question here is – how do you even know IF a word has a plural form? We have many words in English that do not have a plural form! Nouns such as these are referred to in a number of ways: non-count nouns, non-countable nouns, uncountable nouns.  Whatever you call then, you will need to know if the noun even has a plural form.

Stay tuned for our next blog post: How to Know if a Noun is Countable or Noncountable!

Many of my ESL students have come from the Dominican Republic. They understand baseball! Baseball and the Dominican Republic go hand in hand! Baseball is also very popular in Japan so my Japanese students also understand and love baseball.

Many other international students, however, have no idea what’s going on in the game of baseball, which is so popular in the United States. Baseball is not popular in Europe, Russia, or the Middle East.  That sounds odd to an American, especially after many Americans complain about how slow baseball is! How could the game of baseball be so confusing when it goes so slowly? I guess when you grow up with a sport, like I did, its seem so easy!

So here’s my attempt to explain baseball, to the person who has no idea what’s going on. In fact,  baseball is so complicated that it will take more than one post.  So I’ll begin:

First, baseball is a team sport. There are two teams.   The teams are the “home” team and the “away” team. The team that is the “away” team bats* first.

The game is organized into “innings“. The basic game consists of nine complete innings. If the game is tied** after nine innings, the game goes into “extra innings” until one team wins.  The longest game in baseball occurred in 1920; it was 25 innings long!

Each inning lasts until there are three “outs” on the part of the team that is “at bat“.  There are many ways to score an “out”.

Let’s talk about the baseball field.  There are four bases:  home plate, first base, second base, and third base. Because the bases are arranged in the shape of a diamond, we use the term “baseball diamond” to refer to these four bases.

Also located in the infield is the pitcher’s mound.

Finally, the field is divided into “infield” and “outfield“.  The “infielders” are the following players: The pitcher, the catcher, the first baseman, the second baseman, the shortstop, and the third baseman. The “outfielders” are the right fielder, the center fielder, and the left fielder. That adds up to nine players on the defensive team who may be on the field at any one time.

The equipment used in the game is the following: the bat, the fielders’ gloves, the four bases. There are also batting helmets , knee and ankle protectors, and the catcher’s and umpire’s protective equipment such as the face mask and chest protector, because the ball is traveling so very quickly and could do some serious damage.  You might include sunglasses, batting gloves, and suntan lotion in this category, as the sun is a big factor in this game when played in the daytime.

Do you have that so far?

In part 2, we will discuss the rules of baseball.

As usual, we would love to hear your feedback and comments.

* from the verb, (to) bat
**from the verb (to) tie/ passive form: (to) be tied

Here is an excellent question received from a viewer.  Because we did not have your email address, we could not respond to you personally via email. However, there’s a bright side to that because we will answer your question on the blog for all to see!

The question was:  “Shouldn’t it me 24:7 and not 24/7?” The question is about how we write this expression, “twenty-four (24) seven (7)”.

The expression 24/7 is the way we write “twenty-four seven”, meaning 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. The forward slash / is commonly used to indicate “per”. Thus, we abbreviate “twenty-four (24) hours per day, seven (7) days per week” as “24/7″.

To us, 24:7 is a ratio or a division problem: 24 divided by 7.

I hope this helps!

Thanks for your question.

The ESL Help Desk!

please what is the meaning of “gifts of plenty”?

Alfonso

We answered him this way:

We are happy to answer your questions about any English expressions.