gold is countable or uncountable noun?

gold is countable or uncountable noun?

thanks

Is gold countable or uncountable noun?

Uncountable.

Some rings made of gold are countable.

Which of the following is best used in the context of the sentence below?

Many cultures believe gold represents wealth. If a family has ____________ gold in their possession, they are considered as being rich.

Choose one answer.

a. much

b. plenty of

c. a large number of

d. many

Plenty of, in my opinion.

gold is uncountable noun.it is a material noun which is opposite to abstract noun.in material noun u can touch things but can not count e.g water ,milk etc.

Lucky those, who need to count their gold :slight_smile: To me it´s uncountable since I haven´t the smallest crumb of it.

Do we use articles the and a with abstract nouns?

If so, when?

Thanks

Hi,

Why not?

A fear/the fear A love/the love

Alan

Someone said we didn’t. Once. Thank teacher Alan.

I guess you are referring to me. According to ‘A Practical English Grammar’ (Thomson & Martinet), we do not use “the” before abstract noun except when they are used in a particular sense.

Ex: Men fear death.
The death of the Prime Minister left his party without a leader.

Just as an aside, we usually call them “nuggets”, not “crumbs”.
Or gold dust.
;))

Again, the word “death” should not always be abstract, for example:
He died a slow death.

Those textbooks often give half-baked ideas/rules that do not always stand up, because the authors don’t have the time to give every grammar point the attention it merits.

Hello OTS,

Thanks for the hint. I always thought a nugget is what old gold-diggers were keen on finding in the ground and dust of course does mean very small particles. So, I thought of pieces somewhere between these two seizes, as large as a crumb of bread which usually drops down on the ground when cutting it.

Regards

Michael