朋友甲 (在小學教英文的那位) 問栗，一塊豬扒英文怎麼說。
「是不是 a piece of pork chop？」
「那麼兩塊呢？」
「Two pieces of pork chops？」
「可是，我們會說 a bowl of vegetables 呀！為甚麼一塊豬扒不是 a piece of pork chops 呢？」
要命！栗只知道 pork chop 是可數名詞 (countable nouns)，而我們很少會說 two pork chops 的，那個 s 字，該怎麼解釋才好？
有誰能幫幫栗嗎？
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I'm not sure if this is correct, but I think it's because:
回覆刪除A bowl of vegetables means different kinds of vegetables (mixed ones e.g. carrot, peas, broccoli etc.) cos if you only have one kind of vegetable in a bowl (e.g. broccoli), you'll say a bowl of broccoli, or a bowl of vegetable (one kind of vegetable).
[版主回覆11/10/2009 21:49:00]Thank you, Southern Gal , and I totally agree with you explanation.
Vegetable, food, fish, people, and other oddball nouns are tricky. You normally do not use its plural form unless the author is specifically emphasizing the different, distinct kinds of that noun.
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On "a piece of pork chop", I only use this phrase if I mean a small piece out of a single pork chop, otherwise, I treat the noun as a regular countable noun and say one pork chop, two pork chops.....
[版主回覆11/10/2009 21:51:00]Thanks so much for the explanation, Teacher
Just one follow-up question: Is it wrong to say two pieces of pork chops?
vegetable的s是指類別， pieces of pork chops的pieces是指塊。
回覆刪除話時話，唔係應該寫「pieces of pork chop」咩﹖前面都s左後面仲要加﹖
[版主回覆11/10/2009 21:52:00]說得對，我都開始懷疑 pieces of pork chops 是錯的，等 Teacher 回覆。
Yes, I think it is wrong, unless you could give me another example of "two pieces of XXXs" where XXXs is countable and a plural form, and you are sure that the expression is correct.
回覆刪除[版主回覆11/11/2009 08:02:00]Thanks for the confirmation, Teacher!
Of course I can't find another example. Unfortunately, I have been asked to 'defend' the phrase 'two pieces of pork chops(!)' ...