The question is whether it should be:
- Jack has always loved chocolate (or chocolates).
- Jack has always been loving chocolate (or chocolates)
I think we need to put it as chocolates (in plural).
Anglophile, why “chocolates”, I thought I was using the chocolate as an uncountable noun in the 1) and the 2). In addition, OK, I saw in my dictionary, “chocolate” can be countable as well but, I admit, it’s something new to me.
Does it mean “chocolate” can be used instead of “a bar of chocolate”?
Can I say in a shop, “I’d like that chocolate” instead of “I’d like that bar of chocolate”?
Has grammar changed about it recently or is it as that for a long time?
It’s surprising that your original question has disappeared.
Well, if you use an article or an adjective or a phrase like a bar/box of, the sentence will be better.
As regards your shopping, either of them, in my view, should be acceptable.
I don’t think there has been any change in the grammar of this aspect for a long time.
It has not disappeared: has always loved chocolate vs. has always been loving chocolate[YSaerTTEW443543]
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Thank you, Torsten. But there is still something wrong. Now I seem to have become the author of the question, and have accordingly modified it.
Hello Anglophile, it could be the admin cut the part with your answer off the topic I started. My topic was about differences between the two perfected tenses, but your answer took me in to ask an additional question referred to countable, uncountable, collective nouns and such things. Thanks for your answers anyway.
No, it’s just the other way around. It’s much better to use ‘chocolate’ than ‘chocolates’ in this context. It’s pretty much the same as saying “I’ve always loved coffee”. Saying “I’ve always loved coffees” doesn’t make much sense.[YSaerTTEW443543]
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But, Torsten, coffee is not a countable noun!
I beg to differ. Please take a look at this snapshot. I do think that Starbucks know what they are talking about when they describe their ‘coffees’:
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Here, in my country as well, people say ‘Give me a coffee’ which is taken to mean a cup of coffee. On the same analogy, I agree that Starbucks could use it in the plural meaning ‘different types of coffee’. This is my view based on my limited knowledge and handling of English usages. However, I’m not sure whether coffee and tea have come to be pluralized in the usual manner.
To me, grammatically, both singular (“a food made from roasted ground cacao beans”) and plural (meaning individual sweets) forms can be used depending on what you meant to talk about. You can be a life-long chocolate lover that is, you love it as a substance (and anything containing it) or you can love sweets made from chocolate.
As to ‘coffees’ (“a reception at which coffee and other refreshhments are served”), why not assume there are those loving theese specific parties around.
I’m sure you will hear ‘two coffees please’ at coffee shops around the world thousands of times every day. In other places you will hear things like ‘five beers please but make it quick, mate’ ;-)[YSaerTTEW443543]
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