MSGID: 2:221/6.0 5d1c7818   
   REPLY: 1:153/7715.0 d1bbcd60   
   PID: JamNNTPd/Cygwin32 1.3 20190208   
   CHRS: LATIN-1 2   
   TZUTC: 0300   
   TID: hpt/w32-mvc 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   Hi, Dallas Hinton!   
   I read your message from 02.07.2019 13:14   
      
    AS>>> Not at all, and Dallas Hinton explained it well that in this   
    AS>>> phrase!?! horse' is uncountable becauase denotes a substance. In   
    AS>>> Shakespeare, however,!?! snail' certainly refers to the whole   
    AS>>> individual animal. Observe that Americans use!?! pie'   
    AS>>> uncountably, too, e.g.: "We had tea and apple pie".   
      
    AK>> Horse is a substance? ;)   
      
    DH> One of the problems here is that many nouns can be both countable   
    DH> and uncountable, depending on context. To confuse things   
    DH> further, "horse" is a street name for cocaine (or at least, used to   
    DH> be -- dunno if that's still true!)   
      
    DH> When we say "tea and apple pie", we actually mean "a cup of tea and   
    DH> a piece of apple pie" (or perhaps several cups and pieces,   
    DH> depending on greed, appetite, and the host's offerings!).   
      
    DH> Now - "horse" in the powder form is uncountable (without a   
    DH> microscope!) but can be measured in grams (or variants). In the   
    DH> animal form, a herd of horses is confusing, because while the   
    DH> number of horses in a herd can be counted but the word "herd" isn't   
    DH> usually. Nonetheless, we might talk about there being a number of   
    DH> herds of wild horses in the US midWest... and we could count them.   
      
    DH> I guess what I'm really saying is that we shouldn't get too hung up   
    DH> on the concept of countable vs. noncountable -- do what makes sense   
    DH> and remember that the English language is a hodge-podge of words   
    DH> and phrases stolen from any other language that will hold still   
    DH> long enough to be robbed!   
      
   Anton has told me that you told me that King Arthas smelled like horse   
   (without an article) because horse was a substance. Did you tell it? I don't   
   remember. ;)   
      
   Although I liked more Mark's explanation:   
   -----Beginning of the citation-----   
   Well... In short, a grammatically correct phrase would have been too awkward   
   in this situation. ;)   
   ----- The end of the citation -----   
      
   Bye, Dallas!   
   Alexander Koryagin   
   english_tutor 2019   
      
   ---   
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