Singular or plural : when one element cannot be counted

Singular or plural : when one element cannot be counted


“I hope that the shield, the mask, the gloves, the protection, all that is enough.”

This line is from ‘Battersea Park’ by Philip Hensher.

There are several elements. You can count how many ‘shields’; same goes for ‘mask’ and ‘glove’. When it comes to ‘protection’, you’d be hard pressed to count ‘protection’ in this way: ‘one protection’, ‘two protections’.

If one element among many is uncountable, you cannot write ‘all those’. You take the singular ‘that’.

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Published on April 03, 2023 21:59
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Leon Wing
Malaysian novelist/poet
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