Q: What is your opinion about the use of “best interest” vs. “best interests”? I have seen both used interchangeably, but I don’t believe that usage is correct.

A: My thanks to Attorney Richard D’Ambrosio of Englewood, California, for this question, which has to do with count versus non-count nouns. In Old English the number of non-count nouns was much greater than in modern English. Today’s English speakers are not even aware that there are two classes of nouns, and the subject becomes more confusing because non-count nouns are rapidly sliding into the “count” category.

The noun interest used to be a non-count noun like information, laziness, capitalism, and leisure. Non-count nouns do not need to be preceded by an article (either the or a/an). Thus you can say “Interest is due on loans,” not “The interest is due.”. Non-count nouns have no plural forms and cannot be divided into units and counted. You do not speak of “informations” or of “one information” or “two informations.” Most non-count nouns are intangible, but a few, like flour, macaroni and rice, are tangible.

There are many more count nouns than non-count nouns. Nouns like umbrella, book, house, mosquito and airplane are count nouns. They require either a definite or an indefinite article preceding them. So you must say “Carry an umbrella if it is raining,” not “Carry umbrella if it is raining.” Count nouns are divisible into units and can be counted: “One umbrella, two umbrellas.” Most count nouns are tangible, and their number is rapidly increasing, for many formerly non-count nouns are now becoming count nouns.

But here’s the problem: In current usage, because nouns are moving into the count category so quickly, they are often in flux, and can be either count nouns or non-count nouns. Interest is one such noun. So you may say “much interest” or “many interests,” depending on your meaning. Like the noun interest, consideration is also non-count in the context, “for the sum of ten dollars and other valuable consideration.” But–like interest-- consideration is a count noun in the sentence, “Other considerations affected my decision.” And the formerly non-count noun sugar, has become a count noun in the statement, “Pass me a (packet of) sugar.”

Another word has become a count-noun: behavior. Psychiatrists and psychologists now talk about “behaviors” instead of “behavior.” And they have also decided that people suffer from depressions, not depression.

Weather forecasters have begun to talk about “humidities,” as in “the humidities of various areas.” Journalists now discuss political “insights” instead of “insight”; and in a recent law review article, “intelligence” was shifted into the count category by a writer who discussed “ intelligences” rather than “ intelligence,” the traditional non-count noun.

(My spell-checker must be old-fashioned, for it tells me all these count nouns are misspelled.)

Q: This question is about the punctuation between the subject and the verb in a sentence. I frequently see what seems to be an incorrect comma inserted in a sentence like the following (which appeared in “Becoming Justice Blackmun,” by Linda Greenhouse): “The Court’s action in granting the case deprived him of the luxury of musing about the passage of time, and required him to think through the issue as a legal matter.” The St. Louis correspondent who sent the question asked, “How about that comma before and?

A:That comma before and is incorrect grammatically and unnecessary stylistically, as the correspondent surmised. The reason for a comma before and would be to separate two clauses, and the submitted sentence does not contain two clauses.

For the sentence to contain two clauses, the author would have had to add a subject to the second part of the sentence: “The Court’s action in granting the case deprived him of the luxury of musing about the passage of time, and that interval would have required him to think through the issue as a legal matter.” Because a subject is missing from the second part of the sentence, the author of the article should have omitted the comma.

ADDENDUM:

Thanks for the many e-mails I received after my “accident,” (in which I was hit by a car during my usual hour-long morning walk). I began to thank each of you individually, but soon realized that if I continued, I would never finish this column in time for the September Bar News. So please consider this note my thanks to all of you for your good wishes.

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 block@law.ufl.edu.