He had a real enthusiasm for the work.
I would just like to confirm if this sentence is grammatically correct. I came across this example sentence at oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries … enthusiasm which says that ‘enthusiasm’ is an uncountable noun. I understand that some nouns can be both countable and uncountable, depending on the specificity. However, the word ‘enthusiasm’ can only be used as an uncountable noun (U), and not (U,C), as shown in the first sense. Would it still be ok should the article ‘a’ be omitted in the sentence above?
Could someone enlighten me on this please?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Leong187,
You’re right that the word ‘enthusiasm’ would normally only be used as a noncount noun. However, there are exceptions. When noncount nouns are preceded by an adjective, many ‘adjective+noncount noun’ phrases can be (and often are) preceded by the indefinite article. Look at the discussion here, and especially at what was posted by the user named ‘vchekh’.
Here are the examples listed in that English Forums thread:
In addition, sometimes noncount nouns can be preceded by the indefinite article in order to indicate a particular ‘type’ of that noun, and it seems to me these would typically be followed by a THAT-clause.
- He had an enthusiasm for life that could not be dampened.
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