bread a loaf
clothing a garment
laughter a laugh
luggage a case, a bag
poetry a poem
money a coin, a note
work [but > 2.31, 2.33] a job
Nouns for animals are countable; nouns for meat are uncountable: a cow/beef a deer/venison a pig/pork, a sheep/mutton
Nouns not normally countable in English
A number of nouns which are countable in other languages (and are therefore used in the singular and plural in those languages) are
2 Nouns
usually uncountable in English (and therefore not normally used with a/an or in the plural). A few common examples are: baggage, furniture, information, macaroni, machinery, spaghetti [> App 4]:
We bought (some) new furniture for our living room recently
I'd like some information please.
Partitives: nouns which refer to part of a whole
We can refer to a single item (a loaf of bread), a part of a whole (a slice of bread) or a collection of items (a packet of biscuits) by means of partitives. Partitives are useful when we want to refer to specific pieces of an uncountable substance, or to a limited number of countable items. They can be singular (a piece of paper; a box of matches) or plural (two pieces of paper; two boxes of matches) and are followed by of when used before a noun. The most useful are:
General partitives
Words such as piece and (less formal) bit can be used with a large number of uncountables (concrete or abstract): singular: a piece of/bit of chalk/cloth/information/meat/plastic plural: pieces of/bits of chalk/cloth/information/meat/plastic.
Specific partitives
Here is a brief summary, but [> App 5] for more examples:
Single items or amounts: a ball of string, a bar of chocolate, a cube of ice, a lump of sugar; a sheet of paper, a slice of bread
A few of these can be re-expressed as compounds:
e.g. a sugar lump, ice cubes
'Containers' used as partitives:
a bag of flour; a box of matches, a cup of coffee; a jar of jam,
a packet of biscuits, a pot of tea; a tube of toothpaste
Most of these can be re-expressed as compounds: e.g. a jam-jar a
matchbox, a teapot, to describe the container itself. Thus a teapot
describes the container (which may be full or empty), while a pot ot
tea describes a pot with tea in it [> 2.10.7].
Small quantities: a drop of water, a pinch of salt
Measures: a kilo of sugar, a metre of cloth
'a game of: a game of football
Abstract concepts: a period of calm, a spell of work
Types and species: a make of car, a sort of cake
'a pair of: a pair of gloves, a pair of jeans [> App 5.8]