Eight stone of dog

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:05 am

My dogs weigh four stone each; I weigh 10 and a half. I nearly always take them out separately because I can't physically control eight stone of dog.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1882433,00.html

How would you explain the use of dog at the end of that quote?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:19 am

Uncountable and probably even less marginal than Richard's comment in "Keeping up appearances":

Richard: Get this mutt off me! [Richard is being sat on by a large hairy dog.]
[Hyathinth shoos the dog away.]
Hyathinth: Oh Richard, your all covered in hair.
Richard:That's an improvement. A minute ago I was covered in dog.

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:31 am

Treating it as a material noun (uncountable).

Figuratively, opposite of personification - can you call it *materialification*

? But the unit for measuring is an animate one, though (stone).

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:58 am

Thanks for the confirmations. I'd say that both Richard and Michele Hanson want us to think of the the dog(s) as a mass of fur, claws and bad breath rather than distinct animals, hence the "uncountable" usage.

It could be confusing to the student who's been taught to put "countable" and "uncountable" nouns in different "boxes".