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[Learneng]

Hi Ben,

I would also not consider this kind of trips but this experience will be good for my resume. I just got an email from the British embassy that my visa has been issued. Phew...what a relief.

Will share the UK experience with all of you. Meantime, I'll post a story provided by my ESL teacher.

Learneng

[Learneng]

Hi All,

Below is a story in which the word "cake" has been used as a mass and countable noun. Cake-m is a mass noun and cake-c is an example of countable noun.

Hope this helps,
Learneng
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The Story of “Cake”: A mixed mass/count noun

Cake is a food substance. Like many foods, it is consumed in mass. We will call this type of cake “cake-m.” You chew the food mass cake-m and swallow it. The food mass cake-m that you eat, you eat in an uncountable form that must be counted in bites (10 bites of cake-m), forkfuls (3 forkfuls of cake-m), slices (2 slices of cake-m) or pieces (a piece of cake-m). You can eat a piece of cake-m a day for breakfast—and perhaps you won’t gain weight. You might even be able to get away with eating cake-m every morning for breakfast without gaining weight, depending on how much you eat.

In the real world, cake-m comes in predictable shapes and sizes that can be counted. We will call these countable cakes “cake-c.” When on the prowl for cake-m, we usually encounter square, rectangular, or circular cakes-c that are 6 to 10 inches in size. You may come across cakes-c as large as 24 inches, but these are usually for special events such as company birthday parties or weddings. Even larger cakes-c have been spotted on vacation cruise ships and at celebrity galas. If you told someone you’d never met that you “ate a cake every morning for breakfast,” they would surely think “cake-c, 6-10 inches across” and assume you weighed 300 pounds.

Unlike butter-m, which comes in an even more predictable shape than cake-m (the quarter-pound stick), people actually still sometimes make cake-m in their kitchens. Perhaps that’s why we count them—one cake-c, two cakes-c, three cakes-c—after going to all that trouble.

Here’s another reason why mass cake-m sometimes becomes countable cake-c. If you are in the business of manufacturing food –  in your own kitchen, a small shop, or large factory—you are in the business of replicating. The mass cake-m that you eat becomes replicated cakes-c that you bake. You may use the same recipe (the cakes-c are identical) or different recipes (so you have a variety of cakes-c)-Either way the mass of food cake-m, from a commercial standpoint, transforms into plural cakes-c that are priced, sold, and bought individually.

And that’s the story of cake (cake-m AND cake-c)
Epilogue
Other food substances have similar stories. They transform in other environments:
•   The mass meat-m that you eat transforms in a butcher shop into a variety of meats from different sources and of different types, flavors, textures, etc.
•   The building material stone-m that is mined in quarries, stacked to form walls & foundations, aligned to form patios, and crushed then spread to form driveways remains stone-m when encountered in nature in massive sheets, but transforms into countable stones-c when broken down by erosion, scattered about mountains or sprinkled into hiking boots (I have stones in my boots.)
•   The mass fish-m that you eat in its native environment, the ocean, represents a variety of fishes-c; that is, species of fish-m (but this fish story is more complex and warrants a complete story of it’s own.).

[benleon]

Hi Learneng,
Glad to know that your application for the visa to enter the UK is successful. Besides being good for your resume, the trip also provides an opputurnity to experiance in person the English lanugage, spoken in the Englishman's diction. Wow! What could be more original than that.

As to how to determine what constitutes a countable noun or uncountable, it is an idea quite difficult to grasp. To this date, I am still not sure up as to which group the word " information " belongs to because I have seen the word being used in the the plural form.

Benleon     

[luke]

Hi Ben,

Despite changing outlooks on this, I would recommend sticking with 'information' in its singular form. It reads and sounds better, and is always my choice.

Learneng, when will you be in the UK? I am going back early next year, in late February. Will you be there then?

Luke

[benleon]

Hi Luke,
Thank you for the recommendation. It certainly helps  me to use the word with the enhanced confidence. As my grasp of the grammar is still at the elementary stage, it is difficult for me to differentiate between evolvement and mistake, of the language. Thank you again.

Benleon     

[Learneng]

Hi Ben,

The trip was good and I learned a lot from the work point of view. I'm surrounded by the English speaking people here as well. Its just I lack confidence and therefore, restrain myself from speaking in public. I'm trying to come over this fear and trying to speak a little but don't see much of an improvement.

Regarding the uncountable noun my teacher gave me a link to a website and it was very useful.  It has different uses of a word and shows whether it is a countable or mass noun or both.  Here is the link.

http://www.ldoceonline.com/

Also, she gave a link to a video where the instructor is showing, what a Verb Is, and What Verbs Aren't

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrNMw3lfi8

Hope you find this useful.
Learneng

[Learneng]

Hi Luke,

I’m back from the trip. I was there for just a week on a business trip (Technical tour). It was a very good experience and will certainly enhance my curriculum vitae. I stayed in Slough that’s where the company was. I didn’t get much chance to go around for sight seeing because the day went in meeting and when we are free that is in the evening, almost everything was closed. I found it surprising to see all the shops closed by 5:30-6:00 pm. Most of the shopping for souvenirs was done at the Airport.   

I’ll going to Spain in the month of December for a week on an audit. Also, I might get to go to Slough in or around May 09. Are you moving to the UK in Feb?

Learneng
PS: By the way, there is a tremendous increase in the number of members.

[Learneng]

Hi All,

Last week we had Thanksgiving Holiday, which falls on the last Thursday of November. Here in the States we have good deals/offers on almost everything from electronics to our day to day needs during this time. Thursday’s newspaper contains many pamphlets from different stores. Many stores open very early in the morning (around 5am) so, people stand in the line from 3 am because the advertised piece will have limited quantity. It gets crazy once the store’s door opens. Because of this craziness one of the employees of a local chain of Wal-Mart lost his life in the stampede. We try to go late or try to buy it online if available.

Do any of you celebrate Thanksgiving in your countries?
Learneng

[benleon]

Hi Learneng,
It requires great courage to speak in public. If I were in your situaution, I would confine myself to saying Yes and No. I will visit the site you have recommended for the countable nouns.

Benleon

[luke]

Hi Learneng,

Happy New Year! I hope you are enjoying the new year, and having a wonderful time with you family. I send my warmest wishes for a year packed with love, happiness and success, and hope you get everything you want. Have a drink on me!

Luke