- sometimes singular and plural forms are mixed: The group gave its first concert in June and they are already booked up for the next six months.
- examples: bank, family, party, class, club, committer, England (football team), firm, jury, government, ministry, orchestra, public, school, staff, team, union, the BBC, choir
- in American English singular verbs are normally used with them

Quantifying expressions

- Many singular quantifying expressions can be used with plural nouns and pronouns; plural verbs are normally used in this case:
A number of people have tried to find the treasure.
A group of us are going to take a bout through the French canals.
A couple of my friends are going to open a travel agency.
A lot of social problems are caused by unemployment.
The majority of criminals are not violent.
Some of these people are friends of mine.
Half of his students don’t understand a word he says.

Plural expressions with singular verbs

Amounts and qualities
Where is that five pounds I lent you? (NOT where are…)
Twenty miles is a long way to walk. (NOT twenty miles are…)
We’ve only get 5 litres of petrol left. That isn’t enough. (NOT those aren’t…)

Countable and uncountable nouns

The differences between countable and uncountable nouns

- C nouns are the names of separate objects, people, ideas etc which can be counted. We can use numbers and the article a/an with C noun, they have plurals:
a cat – three cats, a newspaper – two newspapers

- U (or ‚mass‘) nouns are the names of materials, liquids, abstract qualities, collections and other things which we see as masses without clear boundaries, and not as separate objects. We cannot use numbers with U nouns, and most are singular with no plurals.

- We do not normally use a/an with U nouns, though there are some exceptions:
water – NOT a water or two waters
wool – NOT a wool or two wools
weather – NOT a weather or two weathers

- some determiners can only be used with C nouns (many, few), others can only be used with U nouns (much, less):
How many hours do you work?
How much money do you earn?

- not all nouns are either simply C or simply U. Many nouns have both C and U uses, sometimes with a difference of meaning

Problem case:

C: bean(s), pea(s), grape(s), lentil(s), fact(s)
U: rice, spaghetti, macaroni (and other pasta food), sugar, salt

English and other languages:

U C
accommodation a place to live
advice a piece of advice
bread a piece of bread
chess a game of chess
grass a blade of grass
information a piece of information
knowledge a fact
lightening a flash of lightening
luck a bit/stroke of luck
money a note, a coin, a sum
poetry a poem
progress a step forward

- Note when U English words are borrowed by other languages they may change into C words with different meaning.