Things You Can / Can't Count
Count Nouns and Noncount Nouns
Noncount Nouns
Noncount nouns take the singular form of the verb. Remember to use both 'some' and any' when discussing specific objects in your home or office.
Example:
John has some time this morning to reformat the archive.
Mr. Courbet has some anxiety about converting his paintings into ASCII images.
The hacker has some ability to exploit weaknesses in an operating system.
Do not use determiners (a, the, these, etc.) when speaking in general.
Example:
This client has friends in the computing world.
Shareware plays an important role in modern software development.
Count Nouns
Count nouns take the plural form of the verb. Remember to use both 'some' and any' when discussing specific objects in your home or office.
Example:
There are some questions included in our FAQ that we need to rewrite this afternoon.
There are some digitized paintings that we need to include as eye candy.
There are some words that might be the back door to this system.
Do not use determiners (a, the, these, etc.) when speaking in general. Use the plural form of count nouns to discuss these objects in general.
Example:
This chat session had participants all around the world.
Apple's politics made the idea of a clone distasteful.