Language tips

I have recently seen the ad of a medical facility that states it accepts “most insurances.” Is that correct? Or should it have been" insurance”?

Usage is changing, but the proper form is still insurance. That choice rests upon the fact that insurance is considered a non-count noun, and non-count nouns do not have plural forms. Nouns like rice, information, flour, contentment, and happiness are non-count nouns. For example, we do not talk about “two rices.”

Another characteristic of non-count nouns is that they can be used without a definite or indefinite article (a or the) preceding their singular form. You would say, “Happiness is desirable,” not “A happiness is desirable” or “The happiness is desirable.” (If that second illustration sounds like a foreigner's usage, you're right. Foreign languages may choose different words to fit into the count and non-count category.)

Count nouns, on the other hand, do form plurals (usually adding an s): (“numerous butterflies,” two trees”). In Old English, there were many more non-count nouns than there are in modern English. And today, the number of non-count nouns continue to decrease. Most English nouns are count nouns (book, apple, pocket, building, and many others). And in singular count nouns, you must add either the or a/an. You must say either “a book is interesting” or “the book is interesting.” You cannot say, “Book is interesting.” Count nouns differ from non-count nouns, also, by the modifier you use with them. You would say “few problems,” but “little difficulty,” “many joys,” but “much pleasure,” “few coins,” but “little change.”

Professional groups that use certain nouns more than the general public often change non-count nouns into count nouns. For example behavior was traditionally a non-count noun, but psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, and social workers refer to behaviors, and now the general public is using behavior as a count noun. The same is true of depression, which used to be a non-count noun (“Many persons suffer from depression” has become “Many people suffer from depressions.”) Recently I heard a lecturer speak about “people's attitudes.” If he had considered attitude to be a non-count noun, he would have said “people's attitude.”

Lawyers consider interest to be a count noun, so they talk about “the best interests of the child.” A reader of this column recently wrote, asking whether interests was proper in the phrase “conflict of interests,” which used to be “conflicts of interest”– and still should be if you think of interest as a non-count noun, as the majority of legal writers do. Another reader was concerned with considerations in the phrase, “for the sum of ten dollars and other valuable considerations.” It is confusing that words like interest and consideration can be count nouns in some contexts and non-count in others. Consideration is a count noun, for example, in “Other considerations affected my decision,” but non-count in a statement like “Consideration for others is important.” Although we speak the same language, Britons consider hospital to be a non-count noun, while we think of it as a count noun. So Britons go to hospital; Americans go to the hospital.

The noun freedom is non-count in “You have freedom to do as you like,” but a count noun in “Americans have many freedoms.” That is also true for liberty and justice. In the phrase “With liberty and justice for all,” both nouns are non-count. You would not say “With the liberty and the justice for all,” but those nouns are also non-count; you can speak of “liberties,” and “Justices.” When you speak of money you are using that noun as a non-count noun, but when you see the noun monies you understand that the person was using the noun as a count noun

Because of the principle of analogy, as more nouns become count nouns, the stock of non-count nouns will constantly diminish. I tend to be conservative about change, but as a lawyer you will want to follow strong current trends, and whichever category helps you and your clients understand each other is the category you should choose.

POTPOURRI:

The following news tidbits might be called, “From pejoration to euphemism.” In the journal “Chemical and Engineering News,” a reader objected to the use of the word chemical because it had become tainted by used in compounds like “harmful chemicals.” Other readers demanded that “drug stores” be abandoned for “pharmacies,” with “pharmacists” not “druggists” on duty. They complained that the context “corner drugstore” (where drug addicts go to receive assistance to get rid of their drug dependency) had ruined that name.

The Bush administration prefers the name “climate variability” to “climate change.” The word “variability” seems much less threatening than “climate change.” And administration officials never refer to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by its full name, preferring the acronym “Anwar,” an innocuous substitution.

Under the heading “Making Things Sound Important,” add the following job description provided as a response to an inquiring reporter by a newly appointed deputy: “What I do is orchestrate a series of people who put in inputs that eventually come out as a draft speech which I personally submit to the Secretary-General.” (The appointee seems to mean that his job is to read other persons' drafts of speeches and the edit them for the Secretary-General to read. Not a bad job!)

Gertrude Block is Lecturer Emerita at the University of Florida College of Law. Her book ,”Legal Writing Advice: Questions and Answers” (William S. Hein & Co., Inc.) was published in December 2004. Ms. Block is also author of “Effective Legal Writing”, 5th Edition (Foundation Press), with an accompanying instructor's manual. She is co-author of the “Judicial Opinion Writing Manual” (published by the American Bar Association, 1991). Send questions to the ISBA Bar News – Language Tips, Illinois State Bar Association, Illinois Bar Center, Springfield, IL 62701, or e-mail her at mailto:block@law.ufl.edu.