Are beverage coutable?

Question

I read this on a textbook, "The school cafeteria served 115 cartons of regular milk, 78 cartons of chocolate milk, and
35 cartons of orange juice. About how many beverages wereserved?" I would ask "about how much beverage were served?" Are they both correct? Why?

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]I read this on a textbook, "The school cafeteria served 115 cartons of regular milk, 78 cartons of chocolate milk, ... About how many beverages were served?" I would ask "about how much beverage were served?" Are they both correct? Why?[/nq]
Two or three beverages were served, depending on how you count milk and chocolate milk.
At least in this case, the word "beverage" goes to "what kind?" and the word "carton" goes to "how many?" You can count beverages, but not in the sense you imply. A quantity of a single beverage is "uncountable" for grammar and usage purposes.
If it's one beverage, you could ask, "How much of the beverage was served?" The question you propose above is a hair unidiomatic.
It sounds like a trick question on the text's part, or it would have asked how many cartons, or servings, or something.

Cheers,
Jody

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I read this on a textbook, "The school cafeteria served 115 cartons of regular milk, 78 cartons of chocolate milk, ... About how many beverages were served?" I would ask "about how much beverage were served?" Are they both correct? Why?[/nq]
Beverage is both countable and non-countable. How many beverages? How much beverage? But the latter form is a little odd.

In this case, I would prefer the countable version "How many beverages were served?", to which the answer would be 228. You could also use the uncountable "How much beverage was served?" (note was), but in this case the question wants a quantitative answer in volume, e.g. 8.5 Litres, but there isn't enough information the question to calculate this answer.

David
==

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I read this on a textbook, "The school cafeteria served 115 cartons of regular milk, 78 cartons of chocolate milk, ... About how many beverages were served?" I would ask "about how much beverage were served?" Are they both correct? Why?[/nq]
No, the textbook is right. Beverages are countable.

Only some words can be either countable or uncountable. Take the word drink for example:
How many drinks were served?
How much drink was served?
Both of those are correct.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I read this on a textbook, "The school cafeteria served ... how much beverage were served?" Are they both correct? Why?[/nq]
[nq:1]Beverage is both countable and non-countable. How many beverages? How much beverage? But the latter form is a little odd. ... wants a quantitative answer in volume, e.g. 8.5 Litres, but there isn't enough information the question to calculate this answer.[/nq]
That is a usage I would question. I searched Google for "much beverage" and only 173 results came up, and most of them were other constructions, like:

click the "Calculate" button to see how much Beverage Tracker can save you.
Offers insight on just how much beverage production flows through these channels
This price is determined by how much beverage milk was consumed.

I found one genuine example:
Guth begins selling 12-ounce bottles of Pepsi for a nickel, twice as much beverage as most other soft drinks
I believe it is an error. As far as I know, beverages can only be countable.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I read this on a textbook, "The school cafeteria served 115 cartons of regular milk, 78 cartons of chocolate milk, and 35 cartons of orange juice. About how many beverages were served?"[/nq]
This is a bad question in two respects. It does not specify that one carton = one serving; this is common in the parts of the USA I know but not necessarily everywhere. It uses beverage as a noun in the jargon of the (US) hotel industry. If there were a standard English it would be "How many drinks were served?"
The second error is "About how many . . . " When the exact number is easily calculated, it is misleading to suggest an approximate answer without defining the acceptable upper and lower bounds.
[nq:1]I would ask "about how much beverage were served?"[/nq]
No: in US hotel industry jargon, beverages is a
plural countable noun.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I read this on a textbook, "The school cafeteria served 115 cartons of regular milk, 78 cartons of chocolate milk, ... About how many beverages were served?" I would ask "about how much beverage were served?" Are they both correct? Why?[/nq]
"Beverage" is indeed (usually) countable, but it means a kind of drinkable fluid, not a unit or container of one.
Assuming that this was an arithmetic textbook & not a book of silly riddles, I infer that the intent was to get the reader to add the three numbers. In that case, IMO the question ought to have been phrased "How many beverage cartons were served?" The answer to "How many beverages?" is properly "three", because all the cartons of regular milk were cartons of the same beverage.
"How much...were" is ungrammatical.

Joe Fineman (Email Removed)

Usenet · Answer

(snip)
[nq:1]I believe it is an error. As far as I know, beverages can only be countable.[/nq]
Right, but "beverage" isn't, at least insofar as the ESL-learner's perennial "countability" frustration goes, as follows: should they say "how much of the beverage did you drink?" or "how many of the beverage did you drink?"

Cheers,
Jody

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1](snip)[/nq]
[nq:2]I believe it is an error. As far as I know, beverages can only becountable.[/nq]
[nq:1]Right, but "beverage" isn't, at least insofar as the ESL-learner'sperennial "countability" frustration goes, as follows: should they say "how much ofthe beverage did you drink?" or "how many of the beverage did you drink?"[/nq]
It's still countable. "How much of the beverage" (singular) is not the same as "how much of the water" (uncountable). You can say one beverage and some water, but not some beverage and one water. That's because beverage is countable and water is uncountable.
(Well, sometimes water can be countable: when people say "a water" meaning "a bottle of water".)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1](snip)[/nq]
[nq:2]I believe it is an error. As far as I know, beverages can only be countable.[/nq]
[nq:1]Right, but "beverage" isn't, at least insofar as the ESL-learner's perennial "countability" frustration goes, as follows: should they say "how much of the beverage did you drink?" or "how many of the beverage did you drink?"[/nq]
That's right. Should I ask "how much of that apple juice did you drink?" or "How mnay of that apple juice did you drink?" on a normal situation?
By the way, is it correct to have '?' within a sentence like the paragraph above? I'm sure this one is correct.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I read this on a textbook, "The school cafeteria served 115 cartons of regular milk, 78 cartons of chocolate milk, ... About how many beverages were served?" I would ask "about how much beverage were served?" Are they both correct? Why?[/nq]
What is a beverage? Is it a type of drink, or is it a drink?

"Would you like a beverage?" What does this mean? I take it to mean the same as "Would you like a drink?" In your example, 228 drinks were served. I would say that 228 beverages were served, or that three kinds of beverage were served.

Stefano
http://www.steve-and-pattie.com/esperantujo

Are beverage coutable?

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