English For Research (part 1: Nouns: plurals, countable versus uncountable)

Creating an attractive English context requires to know the elements of a sentences (such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc) and the rules of their application as well. as a result, we should fist identify the parts of a sentence so that we can use them in correct forms.

in this section, the rules related to one of the most important parts are explained

1. regular plurals

1. To form the plural of most countable nouns (including acronyms) simply add s or es to the end of the word.

2. In a noun + of + noun construction where the two nouns indicate a single entity, the fi rst noun is made plural.

3. Adjectives are never made plural.

4. Nouns that act as adjectives are not made plural.

5. A noun which follows a number (or an implied number) is used in the singular form when acting as an adjective. Note the use of hyphens.

6. fold , which is a suffix to indicate a specified number of parts or times, does not have a plural -s. Note the use of hyphens. 

 

2. irregular plurals

1. Some nouns have irregular plurals: child / children, man / men, woman /women, half / halves, knife / knives, life / lives, foot / feet, tooth / teeth

2. Fish and sheep are not made plural.

3. The plural of mouse (the animal) is mice , for the computer device the plural is mouses.

4. Data the plural form is more common in science. The singular form of data is datum , but data is more commonly used in both the singular and plural.

5. Datum / Data is an example of a Latin singular and plural. Other Latin and Greek words commonly used in scientific English are: apex / apices, axis / axes, analysis / analyses, criterion / criteria, lemma / lemmata, optimum / optima, phenomenon / phenomena, vertex / vertices.

3. nouns ending in - s

Some singular nouns finish in ‘s’. Such words behave in different ways:

1. Economics, electronics, mathematics, physics, politics, statistics –when these words describe a subject of study, they require a verb in its singular form (e.g. is not are ).

2. If the words in Rule 1 are not used in the sense of a subject of study, they generally require the verb in the plural, but are also found with a verb in the singular. An exception is electronics which is found, indifferently, with a singular or plural verb.

3. Means can be the plural of mean (i.e. average). However, means is singular when the meaning is way , for example, a means of transport.

4. News is uncountable , also medical words such as diabetes, mumps, and pus are uncountable.

5. Nouns that end in -is form their plural with -es (e.g. one analysis / thesis, two analyses / theses ).

6. Species is both singular and plural.

4. nouns indicating a group of people

1. Some nouns that have a plural form are often used in the singular but with either a singular or a plural verb. Such nouns all relate to humans and include: army ( navy, air force ) , audience, board, cabinet ( council, government, senate ,etc.), class (as in group of students), committee, company ( firm, corporation etc.), crew, department, faculty, family, jury, majority, media, minority, public, staff, team . The choice of singular or plural depends on whether the people who make up the group are acting as individuals (generally plural verb preferred) or as a collective unit (generally singular verb).

2. People requires a plural verb. persons is often used as a more formal version of people . persons is frequently found in medical and psychology research papers, or when talking about the capacity of a machine to hold a certain number of persons. In other cases people is often more appropriate particularly when it refers to people in general, rather than a subset.

3. Police is followed by a verb in the plural (e.g. the police do not intervene ).

5.number-verb agreement

1. Generally speaking the noun closest to the verb determines whether the verb is in a singular or plural form. Example: The majority of books have now been digitized by Google. In this example there are two nouns – majority and books but books is closest to the verb ( have been digitized ).

2. A number of requires a verb in its plural form; the number of requires a verb in its singular form.

3. A set of  or a series of requires a verb in its singular form.

4. The verb before more than one is in its singular form.

HOMEWORK

part 1

Identify the correct word.

1. Of these papers, less than a half (deals / deal) with this issue.

2. A number of authors (has / have) claimed that x = y.

3. The number of publications per year (is / are) reported in Table 3.

4. The majority of articles only (covers / cover) marginal issues.

5. This group of tables (contains / contain) all the relevant results.

6. Ten kilos (is / are) enough to ensure a good performance.

7. Several thousand dollars (is / are) required.

8. People (is / are) stranger than animals.

9. The police (is / are) present in heavy numbers.

10. Fifty per cent (is / are) certainly a good rate.

part 2

The following sentences contain mistakes regarding uncountable nouns that have mistakenly been used as if they were countable. Identify the mistakes and correct them.

1. Such feedbacks are vital when analyzing the queries.

2. The time depends on the ef fi ciency of each equipment and the number of equipments.

3. Several software packages were developed with many attentions to eradicating all bugs. However, in several situations, the results obtained from these softwares are still erroneous.

4. Special hardwares are required in some situations.

5. Many informations on the structure and function are being gathered.

6. This causes many traf fi cs on the network.

7. There are few knowledge about the best way to do this.

8. These researches have achieved many progresses in this field.

9. I owe you ten dollar, I will give you them on Monday.

10. All patients gave a written consent to the tests.

part 3

The following sentences contain mistakes regarding uncountable nouns that have mistakenly been used as if they were countable. Identify the mistakes and correct them.

1. As far as we know, there has only been one research in this field.

2. These money are collected once a month.

3. This may be an evidence for astrologists.

4. About 60% of the feedbacks were negative.

5. Several informations are now available.

6. The earthquake caused few damages and no fatalities.

7. Garbages represent a big problem in the process of urbanization. In fact they cause.

8. They did a training during the course.

9. She was the only child of a blind father (he was struck by a lightning) and a mother who died of a cancer when she was a teenager.

10. The sheeps appeared to be in a good health and gained weight like the normal control sheeps.