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Believer Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

food, cheese and juice, etc.

0Hi,02br
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00I think the words 'food', 'cheese' and 'juice' can be categorized as mass nouns and I think, as the Collins Cobuild Advanced Learner's Dictionary seems to note, the basic premise behind the mass noun is that when you are mentioning/referring to the substance, you are using it as an uncountable noun and if you are referring to a brand, you are using it as a countable noun. 02br
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00To put them into practice,02br
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00Person 1: I want cheese on my sandwich. -- used in a general sense, in its uncountable form.02br
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00Person 2: Hi, I want a cheese on my sandwich. -- used it to mean an actual slice/piece of cheese.02br
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00Manager: Our restaurant has a lot of variety of cheeses. -- used it to mean it has many different types of cheeses such as American, mozzalena, swiss, etc...02br
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00My question: When you use the words like 'cheese' and 'cheeses', how would you know it is being referred to as slices/pieces (Person 2's) or its various types (Manager's)02br
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00I think the similar position or arguments can be laid out for the words 'food' and 'juice'. 0-
  

Top answer

02br 02br 00Using your 'cheese' example, I think this is pretty much always uncount. 02br 02br 00I want a cheese on my sandwich - no, only if you say 'a slice/portion/piece of cheese'. 02br 02br 00The only time we would say 'a cheese' would be if we were referring to a whole uncut cheese as it is made, for example Edam is made in big round 'cheeses' that are covered with red wax.

— Nona the brit

  • 02br 02br 00Using your 'cheese' example, I think this is pretty much always uncount.
  • 02br 02br 00I want a cheese on my sandwich - no, only if you say 'a slice/portion/piece of cheese'.
  • 02br 02br 00The only time we would say 'a cheese' would be if we were referring to a whole uncut cheese as it is made, for example Edam is made in big round 'cheeses' that are covered with red wax.
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2 Answers
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0No you've not quite got this one.02br
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00Using your 'cheese' example, I think this is pretty much always uncount. I suppose if you were referring to different types of cheese - such as in your sentence - you could phrase it this way but it would be more natural to say 'Our restaurant has a lot of varieties of cheese'.02br
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00I want a cheese on my
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0Personally, I tend to use 'cheese' as an uncountable noun too Nona; however, a search I did on bbc.co.uk for 'cheeses' returned over 40 pages. Some of which I've listed below:02br
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01a01font00Food - Recipes - Scottish 01b00cheeses02b02font
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