Plural ? singular?? huh!

Question

Hellow.... evryone!

I've got some questions which're alwayz lingering on my head...!

Q1: 'FURNITURE'
Is this word singular??? or plural??
If it's plural, what's the singular?

Q2: 'FOOD' or 'FOODS'
What's the difference btween them??

Q3: 'what does 'INFORMATION WARFARE' really mean????

Q4: I've read an article recently, I came across word 'peoples' with S at the end. Is that usable?

OKAY.. thnxz

Odoriko · Accepted Answer

1) Furniture can be both singular and plural.
a. Can you help me to carry this furniture? (singular)
b. I need to move all these furniture. (plural)

2) 'Food' generally refers to your daily diet, as in what you eat. You can probably use it to represent everything that's edible. As far as I can think, 'foods' is used only in situations where you can classify the different types of food into categories, eg. healthy foods and unhealthy foods.

3) If I guess right, the information warfare you're talking about probably refers to a competition or even war in which the rival parties are hoarding as much information as possible, either because it gives them an advantage, or because they don't want the other parties to get the information. An example I can think of is probably the Cold War, in which there was an information warfare between the Soviets and USA. Both made plenty of technological advances during the Cold War period but kept them secret.

4) Yes, peoples is usable and it's generally used to describe races of people, eg. two peoples that live in southeast asia are the Malays and the Chinese. I managed to think of another use for the word just now, but it slipped my mind. I'll post another reply if I ever recall it

Miriam · Answer

"Furniture" refers to a group of things.
If you wish to refer to a particular item, you can say "a piece of furniture".

Is the second example provided by Odoriko correct? I had never seen the word furniture used with a plural determiner, and I couldn't find an example of it in any book or dictionary.
As far as I know, "I have to move this furniture" is correct.
Any other opinions?

Thesul,
In question #4, the word epople can also be used in singular and can be premodified by a singular determiner (it is treated, in this case, like any other countable noun):
"The Chinese and the Malayan are peoples of southeast Asia."
"The Chinese are a people of southeast Asia."

Thank you,

Miriam

Thezul · Answer

thnx alot.. but i got alittle confused...

about 'food' n 'foods' ... is right 4 me to use "I like these food"?

next, regarding 'furniture'.. (miriam, I refer to u) If u say that furniture is 'a group of things' so, that means it's absolutely 'plural'?? isnt it?? so it's not a mistake to use "I like these furniture".... m I rite?

THNX ALOT.. may *** bless all of uuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Elduende_ph · Answer

The English language is beautiful, strange and quirky.

"Furniture" is a word that's supposed to refer to things that you CAN'T count. So it's neither singular nor plural.

I'm not sure if it can be considered a "collective" sort of noun, something that refers to MANY things, but taken together as a WHOLE. "Furniture" in a way, is an abstraction. It refers to more to an idea rather than actual objects. (I could be wrong here so anyone who can correct me, just in case, please feel free to do so.)

So you can't say "These furniture." Better to say "The furniture" as in "I'm going to re-arrange the furniture." You can also say, "What am I going to do with all this furniture? I either sell some of them or move to a bigger house!"

You can use the word "furniture" in the singular sense if you say "This is a nice piece of furniture." In the plural sense, you can say, "I'm getting rid of these ugly pieces of furniture." or "She's a beautiful woman but lacking in taste. I went to her house and saw several ugly pieces of furniture."

The word "food" is a related case. You can say "food" in a general sense, again, collectively. "I like good food." means you like food -- in general -- that for you is delicious and well-prepared following your own taste.

You can say "foods" if you are making distinctions between several types of food. For example: "There are healthy foods and foods that could actually make you sick."

Or you can say, "I'm not really a big fan of Asian food (general, collective). But among the foods (meaning, the different types of food from the Far East) of the Orient, I like Japanese food (general, collective) and Chinese food (general, collective) best."

Anonymous · Answer

That was very helpful, thank you. <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/2.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/2.gif' alt='Emotion: big smile'/>

Plural ? singular?? huh!

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