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Esraa Anwar Posted 10 years ago
Grammar
Which of THIS/THESE jewellery is a must have?
Hello, So I'm having this dispute with my manager at work where I might get fired because of it. English is not our first language, but I've majored in English at Uni and I've taught it as well. He made me doubt myself on the other hand, so here goes my question:
We work in Social Media, so yesterday I posted a photo of 3 diamond bracelets, labeled them with numbers and wrote the following caption: Which of this jewellery is a must have?
He said it should be: Which of THESE jewellery is a must have?
I tried to explain that jewellery is an uncountable noun, and that "which" refers to the ONE bracelet that they should choose, and not the whole set, therefor it should be a singular and not a plural. I am not even good at explaining why things are the way they are, it just comes with sense.
So your thoughts are highly appreciated. It's ok if I am wrong, I just need to know because it's a big issue here at work. Thanks!
We work in Social Media, so yesterday I posted a photo of 3 diamond bracelets, labeled them with numbers and wrote the following caption: Which of this jewellery is a must have?
He said it should be: Which of THESE jewellery is a must have?
I tried to explain that jewellery is an uncountable noun, and that "which" refers to the ONE bracelet that they should choose, and not the whole set, therefor it should be a singular and not a plural. I am not even good at explaining why things are the way they are, it just comes with sense.
So your thoughts are highly appreciated. It's ok if I am wrong, I just need to know because it's a big issue here at work. Thanks!
Top answer
Esraa Anwar I tried to explain that jewellery is an uncountable noun, and that "which" refers to the ONE bracelet that they should choose, The problem is that when you say "which", it means "which ONE", and if 'jewelry' is uncountable, there can't be any number of it, not even ONE jewelry, not even THIS jewelry, and certainly not THESE jewelry. Because of this nearly insurmountable problem with 'jewelry', your best bet is not to use that word at all. As you said, the photo showed bracelets, so the solution is Which bracelet is a must-have?
- Esraa Anwar I tried to explain that jewellery is an uncountable noun, and that "which" refers to the ONE bracelet that they should choose, The problem is that when you say "which", it means "which ONE", and if 'jewelry' is uncountable, there can't be any number of it, not even ONE jewelry, not even THIS jewelry, and certainly not THESE jewelry.
- Because of this nearly insurmountable problem with 'jewelry', your best bet is not to use that word at all.
- As you said, the photo showed bracelets, so the solution is Which bracelet is a must-have?
- or Which of these bracelets is a must-have?
- If you insist on using 'jewelry', you are stuck with a very inelegant solution, namely, Which of these pieces of jewelry is a must-have?
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5 Answers
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Esraa AnwarI tried to explain that jewellery is an uncountable noun, and that "which" refers to the ONE bracelet that they should choose,The problem is that when you say "which", it means "which ONE", and if 'jewelry' is uncountable, there can't be any number of it, not even ONE jewelry, not even THIS jewelry, and certainly not THESE jewelry.
Because
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fivejedjonAlso asked hereIndeed. I also noticed that someone called 'jed' answered.
CJ
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I noticed that. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a little peeved responding to a question that had already received a satisfactory response here.
I also noticed that he seems to be prone to typos - he omitted one quotation mark. Idiot!
I also noticed that he seems to be prone to typos - he omitted one quotation mark. Idiot!
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fivejedjonhe omitted one quotation markHow shocking! I didn't notice that. I'm prone to missing typos myslef.
CJ
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