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#Rule-29 Concrete vs. Abstract Countable Nouns
Both concrete and abstract nouns can be countable. Concrete nouns name people, places, or things that are tangible—they can be seen or touched. Abstract nouns, on the other hand, name intangible things, such as ideas, concepts, feelings, or attributes.
Concrete countable nouns
Concrete nouns are a bit easier to understand as being countable—after all, they are things that we can see and feel, and so we can usually count them. Consider the following, for example:
• cup
• ambulance
• phone
• person
• eel
• computer
• doctor
Each of these can be considered as an individual item or unit, which means that we are able to count them:
SINGULAR - PLURAL
a cup - two cups
an ambulance - several ambulances
a phone - 10 phones
a person - many people
an eel - three eels
a computer - a few computers
a doctor - some doctors
Abstract countable nouns
Even though abstract nouns are not tangible, many of them can still be counted as separable units. Like concrete nouns, they can take a or an or can be made plural. Consider these abstract nouns:
• conversation
• emergency
• reading
• aspiration
• emotion
• belief
Now let’s see how they can be counted:
SINGULAR - PLURAL
a conversation - two conversations
an emergency - several emergencies
a reading - 10 readings
an aspiration - many aspirations
an emotion - hundreds of emotions
a belief - certain beliefs
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