Hi! Alexander,

On 03 May 19 11:54, you wrote to Mike Powell:

 AK> [The lack of oxygen at this height saps power.]
 AK> "saps" is related to "lack" and oxygen doesn't make "lack"
 AK> uncountable.

IMHO: saps is related to power.  Power is the thing being sapped by a lack of
oxygen.

 AK> or an uncountable form:

 AK> [Their apparent lack of progress mean they are not doing their job
 AK> properly.]

IMHO: this is unnatural to a native speaker.  (I don't know where Mike got his
rule from, although it may be correct for 99.99% of cases in his locale.)  The
passage should read: "...lack of progress means they are not...".  It could be
countable, in either the case of there being many (persons) involved, or in the
 singular case of one person, when speaking of 'their'.  English can be
annoyingly imprecise at times.  8-)

Cheers,
Paul.

... finer temptress, Through the ages she's heading west,
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