Hi, Mike!  Recently you wrote in a message to ALEXANDER KORYAGIN:

MP>  I may be using "singular" and "uncountable" interchangably
MP>  (and incorrectly!), but I would use MEANS in your example
MP>  also.


           IMHO your usage is correct, although you're not sure how to explain
it.  Maybe I can help a bit re the latter....  :-)



           The term "singular" is used with reference to a noun indicating the
name of a single person, place, thing, idea, organization, or event:


               My friend Mary enjoys horseback riding.

               Vancouver, BC is located near the Pacific Ocean.

               I have an eraser on my desk.

               Love makes the world go 'round.

               The city council wants to install more bike lanes.

               Our folk music festival takes place annually at Jericho Park.



           As a native speaker, you may not have heard the terms "countable" &
"uncountable" in school.  I think I probably learned them from Alexander.  But
you may recall being taught about stuff which is usually measured by weight or
by volume... e.g. various liquids, meat/fish/poultry, cheese, and salt because
it's okay to say "less" whereas with countable objects one should say "fewer".

           People, places, and concrete objects such as erasers are countable.
When I specify my friend Mary I do it because I'm aware that a number of other
folks have the same name.  When I specify Vancouver, BC I do it because I know
there's a city in Washington State with the same name.  WRT erasers.... I have
two, actually, but I would direct others to the one which is easier to find if
they don't care whether they are using a Pink Pearl or an artist's gum eraser.

           I reckon where some of the confusion lies is that we treat abstract
nouns as singular.  Your teachers & mine may not have gone into detail re such
concepts because... while the average student in junior high is experiencing a
phase of rapid brain growth which is the ideal time to introduce them... other
students will claim loudly & adamantly that abstract nouns don't exist because
Miss Grinch in grade three never mentioned them.  OTOH, the common parlance is
rife with examples many native speakers will have seen or heard before:


               Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

               Handsome is as handsome does.

               Happiness is a warm puppy.

               Home is where the heart is.

               Honesty is the best policy.

               Many a mickle makes a muckle (Scottish proverb).

               Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

               The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of
                 the squares on the other two sides.


If we cast our minds back a century or so, many people from Ireland decided to
relocate in the USA because the Potato Blight meant they didn't have enough to
eat.  Not long afterward some of my ancestors from England decided to relocate
in Canada... perhaps at least in part, as I discovered recently, because there
was an economic recession in certain areas which made it difficult for them to
find paid employment.  When I run examples through my head, using synonyms for
"lack", I keep coming up with the same answers.  Whether these people suffered
from a lack of food, an insufficiency of funds, or what have you they chose to
"seek their fortune" in a developing country which eagerly adopted & sometimes
even actively recruited farmers & other skilled workers of all sorts....  :-))




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
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