On the mass noun restaurant rule
Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:43 pm
I've come to the conclusion that this is a stupid rule.
Basically - mass nouns can't be pluralised in most cases, but there are exceptions, one of which being when the thing is something you might order in a restaurant. So although e.g. FENNEL is a mass noun, because it's so tasty you might order two of them in a restaurant.
Maybe on the face of it this seems reasonable, but I don't think you're really using the word in its ordinary sense when you're using it like this. And the fact that it happens to be a mass noun doesn't really seem relevant. If we're having a restaurant rule it should really apply to anything that can be found on a menu, including plurals like CHIPS. There's nothing special about mass nouns in a case like this, so CHIPSES should also be allowed.
Once Susie offered SALMONS because you could order more than one salmon in a restaurant, even though SALMON isn't a mass noun. It's a normal count noun whose plural just happens to also be SALMON. But if you were ordering two of them in a restaurant, you probably would say SALMONS rather than SALMON. But it's been generally decided that this isn't something that should be allowed.
The point is that something appearing on a menu seems to be an invitation for people to stick an S (or ES or whatever) on the end of a word regardless of how its usually pluralised or indeed whether it is usually pluralised - i.e. generally use the language in a "non-standard" way. Unless this becomes a standard thing to be allowed across the board (so CHIPSES, RAVIOLIS, SALMONS), then there's no reason to specifically allow it for mass nouns. It's just that with mass nouns, it's always a bit borderline whether they can be pluralised or not, so it has given us an illusion of reasonableness. But this illusion has now been exposed.
Basically - mass nouns can't be pluralised in most cases, but there are exceptions, one of which being when the thing is something you might order in a restaurant. So although e.g. FENNEL is a mass noun, because it's so tasty you might order two of them in a restaurant.
Maybe on the face of it this seems reasonable, but I don't think you're really using the word in its ordinary sense when you're using it like this. And the fact that it happens to be a mass noun doesn't really seem relevant. If we're having a restaurant rule it should really apply to anything that can be found on a menu, including plurals like CHIPS. There's nothing special about mass nouns in a case like this, so CHIPSES should also be allowed.
Once Susie offered SALMONS because you could order more than one salmon in a restaurant, even though SALMON isn't a mass noun. It's a normal count noun whose plural just happens to also be SALMON. But if you were ordering two of them in a restaurant, you probably would say SALMONS rather than SALMON. But it's been generally decided that this isn't something that should be allowed.
The point is that something appearing on a menu seems to be an invitation for people to stick an S (or ES or whatever) on the end of a word regardless of how its usually pluralised or indeed whether it is usually pluralised - i.e. generally use the language in a "non-standard" way. Unless this becomes a standard thing to be allowed across the board (so CHIPSES, RAVIOLIS, SALMONS), then there's no reason to specifically allow it for mass nouns. It's just that with mass nouns, it's always a bit borderline whether they can be pluralised or not, so it has given us an illusion of reasonableness. But this illusion has now been exposed.
