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Anonymous Posted 11 years ago
Grammar

Delays

"Faulty pipes are often the cause of delays to housing developments".

Shouldn't the above say "housing development projects" instead of "housing development"?

When one speaks of minimising delays, are they referring to the length of delays or the frequency? Thanks
  

Top answer

Anonymous Shouldn't the above say "housing development projects" instead of "housing development"? Not necessarily, no. You CAN say "a housing development project", but you can conceive of "a housing development" as a countable noun.

— Xerxes

  • Anonymous Shouldn't the above say "housing development projects" instead of "housing development"?
  • Not necessarily, no.
  • You CAN say "a housing development project", but you can conceive of "a housing development" as a countable noun.
  • You can certainly say "housing development s ", so there is no problem.
  • Anonymous When one speaks of minimising delays, are they referring to the length of delays or the frequency?
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12 Answers
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AnonymousShouldn't the above say "housing development projects" instead of "housing development"?
Not necessarily, no. You CAN say "a housing development project", but you can conceive of "a housing development" as a countable noun. You can certainly say "housing developments", so there is no problem.
AnonymousWhen one speaks of
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thanks for your reply. "Housing developments" refers to the areas of land with new houses on it, not the process of building houses. How do you delay an area of land? You delay the process of developing the land, don't you? That's why I'm questioning the text.
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Well, look, I can't tell you what the original sentence means - I didn't write it! Emotion: smile
And it looks a bit strange to me, to tell yo
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Emotion: smile thanks for responding again. They did mean the construction of the housing development. I know because
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No, it wouldn't make the sentence any better (or worse). It's like this:

Faulty pipes are often the cause of delays in the construction of housing developments.
==> All or any housing developments (plural).

Faulty pipes are often the cause of delays in the construction of a housing
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I will try to explain what I mean.

Longman's dictionary has this as one of the definitions of "development".

building process

[uncountable]the process of planning and building new houses, streets etc on land

for development


What I meant was can you use "housing" to modify "development" (i.e describe the type of building process).

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Anonymous, I found your source online (Longman's). You're looking at the wrong entry for your definition. You are looking at #6. Look at #7. You will see that it's countable. For your convenience:

7

houses/offices etc

[countable] a group of new buildings that have all been planned and built together on the same piece of land:

a new housing development
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I think I understand where you're going with this. If by "housing development" you mean an abstract noun that is similar to "urban development", then you would omit articles and not convert the noun into plural. E.g.:

Corruption in our city hinders housing development.

But your example apparently refers to a different type of housing development - one that is a project, "
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Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

Thanks for clarifying things for me.Emotion: smile
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Apparently, you can say "delays to". It's in the collins dictionary:
British English: delay If there is a delay, something does not happen until later than planned or expected.This caused delays and disruption to flights.d?'le? NOUN
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