3mo ago

Sydney's car-brained candidate for Mayor

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How many waters in that glass?
- Depends on if you're using water to include types of water (if, like a maniacal madman, you have mixed Evian, Buxton and Harrogate mineral water into one jug). Then 'i mixed fewer waters' or 'there are fewer waters in that glass' would be valid.
  To be clear: I'm not the person you replied to, just someone who finds it quite interesting (in the same way that the plural fishes is valid if you're talking about different species of fish).
  And yes, I know prescriptivism is bad, but also it is quite fun.
  
  Those are homonyms. Water versus waters. The second one is metaphorical.
  I did enjoy your comment and you sound like you’ve had some linguistic training.
  
  Or just atoms of water
  
  Eh, you wouldn't use the noun water to refer to atoms of water. 'How many waters are there?' to refer to atoms of water is the statement of someone deranged
  
  Water only exists as atoms. There is no non-discrete water, it is inherently in reality discrete.
- I believe there are about 55.508435 moles of H₂O in a liter of water at sea level (basically assuming 1 liter of water = 1kg of water)
  
  A mole is countable. Water is not.
  
  Atoms of water are measured in moles. Atoms are discrete units, a mole is just a certain number of them
  
  So you understand then why water is uncountable but atoms are not. Congratulations. What a strange pedantic hill you choosing to die on.
  
  No, water is countable. Unfortunately you are incorrect.
  EDIT: the word "water" isn't usually made plural, but water the substance can absolutely be measured and counted.
  
  Sorry but some nouns (ie cats) can be counted while others (ie air) cannot be.
  
  Language is a flexible thing. I heard this in a children's game of tag, "Octopi, Octopi, can I cross your waters?"
  And you can count air too, either by volume or amount of molecules.
  
  I think you should just go and read the wikipedia articles on countable and noncountable nouns and stop arguing with a literal inguist.
  
  I think you're too rigid with your definitions. I just showed you an example of where water, usually not countable, is used in a plural form in real world usage.
  Regardless of whether the noun is countable, the thing itself (water, air) absolutely is countable, i.e., comes in discrete measurable amounts, which is the more important issue here.
  
  you used a HOMONYM because words can have different uses. "water" meaning an amorphous fluid of dihydrogen monoxide vs "water" meaning discrete bodies of water. You can count bodies of water but you cannot count how much water is in your glass. If you want to use water as a countable, that's fine, but you would be using it in a way that most people don't intend.

151 comments