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English Teacher Melanie: Grammar: Is it OK to use ‘fruits’ and ‘food’ in the plural form?

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Melanie

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Grammar: Is it OK to use ‘fruits’ and ‘food’ in the plural form?

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Take a look at these two sentences. I use two nouns that are normally uncountable nouns as countable nouns:

If you prefer organic fruits and vegetables,…

If you’d like to try something exotic to eat, there are special sections for foreign foods.

*Fruit and food are usually used in the singular form.

Quick review:
In English, there are countable (count) nouns and uncountable (non-count) nouns.

Countable nouns = things that you can count:
1 plant, 2 plants, 2 plants
1 tooth, 2 teeth, 3 teeth
etc.

Uncountable nouns = things that you cannot count, or nouns that represent a group:
information
advice
homework
furniture
clothing
grammar
*They have NO plural form.

Usually food is an uncountable noun. You can’t count one food, two foods, etc.

Do you have any food to eat?

There was so much food at our Thanksgiving dinner!

Food is also an uncountable noun when we talk about different kinds of food:
fast food
junk food
health food
Chinese food
Italian food
etc.

When I said foreign foods I used foods to describe the food from different countries:

foreign foods = Chinese food, Italian food, Indian food, Japanese food, German food, etc.

*In this case, it’s OK to use foods in the plural form.

~

Usually fruit is an uncountable noun. In English, we usually count fruit by saying 1 piece of fruit, 2 pieces of fruit, a bowl of fruit, etc.

It is OK to use fruits when you are talking about many different kinds of fruit:

You can find bananas, grapes and other fruits in the produce section.

Make sure to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

~

Other uncountable nouns that can be countable:

BBC Learning English: peoples, persons


Posted by Melanie at 10:24 PM
Labels: grammar

5 comments:

Zen said…

hello melanie…
i want to buy a domain name with two words, “four” and “food”.
So, is it right if i use fourfood(dot)com? or should i use fourfoods(dot)com?
Thank you!

October 26, 2010 4:57 AM

Teacher Melanie said…

Hello Zen,

‘Fourfood (dot) com is right, but unfortunately someone already has it!

http://www.fourfoods.com/

What kind of website do you want to have?

Take care,
Melanie

October 26, 2010 4:23 PM

Zen said…

Thank you Melanie…
That’s right, i’m still looking for a great domain name. It’s a food related social networking site.

November 3, 2010 1:17 PM

Zen said…

Hello again, Melanie…
Finally, i choose ninefood.com.
Thank you for the advice.

ps.
I would like to invite you there 🙂

December 20, 2010 6:01 AM

Teacher Melanie said…

Hi, Zen!

Wow – your new site is very impressive! Is it a ‘Ning’ social network? Great job!

I wish you lots of success with your new website!

Melanie
= )

December 22, 2010 10:40 PM

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