{"id":2211,"date":"2015-09-24T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T16:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=2211"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:45:10","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:45:10","slug":"non-countable-nouns-that-cant-be-measured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/non-countable-nouns-that-cant-be-measured\/","title":{"rendered":"Non-Countable Nouns That Can\u2019t Be Measured"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my last post on this subject, we looked at certain types of nouns that are non-countable<\/em>\u2014they can\u2019t be assigned a number, and can only be measured in volume. Types of nouns that are measured only in volume and not in number include things that are gas, things that are liquid, grains, and solid substances.
\nThere are still other nouns that can\u2019t be measured at all. Nouns that label unmeasurable things are also non-countable. These nouns fall into several different categories. Read about each type of un-measurable non-countable noun below.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Abstract concepts<\/h2>\n

Abstract concepts can\u2019t be measured at all. There\u2019s no real way to feel two sadnesses, and if something is popular, you can\u2019t really say it has a lot of popularities<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Examples: <\/em><\/strong>anger, energy, popularity, charisma, design, misunderstanding, surprise<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Academic subjects and professional fields<\/h2>\n

Academic subjects are a little more clearly defined than abstract concepts. But they\u2019re still not exactly concrete— it\u2019s hard to tell where exactly biology ends and physical science begins, for instance. So academic disciplines obviously can\u2019t be measured in distinctly separate units either. No one would say they want to major in a bunch of histories at their university. They\u2019d just major in history<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Professional fields are pretty much the same as academic subjects. They are abstract in the sense that they can\u2019t be measured, but concrete in the sense that professional activities have distinct characteristics. Like academic subjects, professional fields overlap with each other. To give just one example, sales and marketing have a lot in common.<\/p>\n

For that matter, professional fields overlap with academic subjects. Business administration is a job, a degree path, and a field of research. Science involves teaching, but also involves working in laboratories, product development teams, etc\u2026<\/p>\n

Examples:<\/em><\/strong> economics, management, IT, computer programming, nuclear physics, history, English literature, retail<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Activities<\/h2>\n

Activities can describe just about anything people do\u2014what they do for fun, what they do at their job, and even things people do without trying, such as breathing. And of course, activity nouns can also refer to the actions and behavior of animals\u2014the word \u201cgrazing\u201d to refer to eating grass is one of many non-human activity nouns.<\/p>\n

Examples:<\/em><\/strong> football, reading, walking, shopping, driving, judging\/judgement, seeing\/sight, migrating, spawning<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Languages<\/h2>\n

Like professional fields, languages can double as academic subjects. For example in this moment right now, you\u2019re studying English. On the surface, languages appear to be more clearly defined than academic subjects or professional fields. But they really aren\u2019t. Swedish and Norwegian have so many similar words that it\u2019s hard to tell exactly how they are truly separate languages. And then there are languages like Chinese that could be seen as one or<\/em> more than one language, with the large differences between dialects such as Cantonese and Mandarin. So nouns that label languages have the same non-countable features as academic disciplines.<\/p>\n

Examples: <\/em><\/strong>English, Italian, Arabic, q-BASIC, binary, html (Notice that these examples include artificial computer languages)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Physical\/medical conditions or treatments<\/h2>\n

Health conditions and treatments are another class of things that are easy to define, but very difficult to measure or count. Take cancer. If someone has cancer and the cancer gets worse, it\u2019s not right to say they are getting more cancers<\/em>. Cancer is a condition <\/em>affects someone\u2019s entire body and can\u2019t be counted in distinctly separate parts. Extending that cancer example, cancer patients my receive radiation treatment, but it would sound strange to say they got radiation treatments<\/em>\u2014 this medical intervention is an ongoing attempt to cure cancer, not a group of distinctly separate items.<\/p>\n

Examples:<\/em><\/strong> cancer, surgery, obesity, illness, exercise, exhaustion, alertness<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Phenomena (that do not have a clear shape, boundary or time limit)<\/h2>\n

This category of non-countable noun can be a little tricky. Phenomena<\/em> are facts and situations that are observable but are not always measurable or countable. Fire, fermentation, tornadoes and earthquakes are all phenomena.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where it gets complicated: Certain phenomena such as tornadoes and earthquakes, clearly can<\/em> be measured and counted. Tornadoes have a clear shape and operate separately\u2014in extremely bad weather, it\u2019s possible for there to be several different tornadoes in one area. Earthquakes have specific time limits (two short earthquakes, one longer one).<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re going to treat a phenomenon (that\u2019s the singular form of phenomena<\/em>) as a non-countable noun, you need to make sure it really does not have a clear shape or limit.<\/p>\n

Examples:<\/em><\/strong> fire, weather, combustion, rain, smoke<\/p>\n

As you can see from reading about nouns that label phenomena, non-countable categories of nouns can become countable in certain contexts. In my next post on non-countable nouns, we\u2019ll look at all of the different ways that a non-countable noun can become countable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my last post on this subject, we looked at certain types of nouns that are non-countable\u2014they can\u2019t be assigned a number, and can only be measured in volume. Types of nouns that are measured only in volume and not in number include things that are gas, things that are liquid, grains, and solid substances. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13604],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13630],"class_list":["post-2211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocab"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNon-Countable Nouns That Can\u2019t Be Measured - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/non-countable-nouns-that-cant-be-measured\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Non-Countable Nouns That Can\u2019t Be Measured\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In my last post on this subject, we looked at certain types of nouns that are non-countable\u2014they can\u2019t be assigned a number, and can only be measured in volume. 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Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. David has a BS and MA from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew"],"knowsAbout":["TOEFL","IELTS","TOEIC","PET","FCE","BULATS","Eiken","SAT","ACT","GRE","GMAT"],"knowsLanguage":["English","Italian"],"jobTitle":"Content Creator","worksFor":"Magoosh","url":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/author\/davidr\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":13630,"user_id":80,"is_guest":0,"slug":"davidr","display_name":"David Recine","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b70c17ee6f3ef87dc4cc5dbdebda911d6dd30dfe15845e4b1d459a3e1b33ef98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"Recine","first_name":"David","description":"David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT.\r\n\r\nDavid has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His work at Magoosh has been cited in<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C50&q=Recine+magoosh&btnG=\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> many scholarly articles<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/minds.wisconsin.edu\/handle\/1793\/65479\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> his Master's Thesis<\/a> is featured on the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingwithpictures.org\/2013\/09\/research-highlight-teaching-english-language-learners-with-comics\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Reading with Pictures<\/a> website, and he's presented at the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.witesol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/2014-WITESOL-Program-FINAL-10-28-14.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> WITESOL (link to PDF)<\/a> and<a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/interoff\/docs\/nafsaregionv_2014conference\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> NAFSA<\/a> conferences. David has taught K-12 ESL in South Korea as well as undergraduate English and MBA-level business English at American universities. He has also trained English teachers in America, Italy, and Peru.\r\n\r\nCome join David and the Magoosh team on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew\"> Youtube<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning\"> Facebook<\/a>, and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/magooshenglish\/?hl=en\"> Instagram<\/a>, or connect with him via<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/\"> LinkedIn<\/a>!"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2211"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}