Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[crliu]

I often notice weathermen use the following expressions:

There aren't clouds in the sky today.

There will be strong winds this afternoon.

There has been heavy rain all day.

What are the usage rules, if there are any, regarding the number of these weather-related nouns such as cloud, wind, rain, etc.?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[dduck]

The only difference that occurs to me at the moment is:

Countable verus Uncountable nouns.

Some nouns are counted individually in English, e.g. eggs: 1 egg, 2 eggs, 3 eggs, etc. Whereas other nouns are measured in quantities e.g. water, 1 litre, 2 litres, 3 litres etc.

Wind and Clouds can be counted. Though generally we speak about North, South, East or West winds, and who is going to bother counting all the number of clouds in the sky, not I! But it is possible in the language.

Rain is uncountable, in English we measure rain instead of count it, normally by the millilitre or inches. Sometimes we say, by the bucketfull (an idiom).

Hope this helps.
Iain
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--Chinese Proverb

[Corey]

Generally I would say most weather-related things are singular since we are really talking about "the climate", which is singular.

IT is rainy, IT is hot, etc....

Wind, cloud, etc... can be countable or uncountable, depending on how you use them.

A nimbus CLOUD is generally white.

The CLOUDS form a circle.

Hope this helps,

Corey
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[Lib]

cloud uncountable???