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Anonymous Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

Keep them parallel all the way through?

Hi. Please tell me if it is correct not to make all uncountable nouns when we have words that can either be countable or uncountable like "ability," "decision" or "action"in a list-like format like the example sentences below.

Let me not distrust her ability, decision and action.

Would it be correct to write these? Thank you for your help in advance.

1. Let me not distrust her ability, decisions and actions.
2. Let me not distrust her abilities, decision and action.
  

Top answer

Any combination is grammatically possible; it just depends on what you want to say. There's not a great difference in this case between "ability" and "abilities". "decision" could be construed as uncountable, meaning her decisive nature, but it tends to look like a singular countable noun, so if you do mean "decisive nature" I think it's safer to say so.

— GPY

  • Any combination is grammatically possible; it just depends on what you want to say.
  • There's not a great difference in this case between "ability" and "abilities".
  • "decision" could be construed as uncountable, meaning her decisive nature, but it tends to look like a singular countable noun, so if you do mean "decisive nature" I think it's safer to say so.
  • I find it hard to see how read to "action" as an uncountable noun here.
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1 Answers
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Any combination is grammatically possible; it just depends on what you want to say. There's not a great difference in this case between "ability" and "abilities". "decision" could be construed as uncountable, meaning her decisive nature, but it tends to look like a singular countable noun, so if you do mean "decisive nature" I think it's safer to say so. I find it hard to see how read to "action"
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