Name: English Tutor Nick P Lesson (348) The Countable and Uncountable Use of Gossip
Uploaded: 2019-07-12T14:54:45.000Z
Duration: 2 min 46 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi this is Tutor Nick P  and this is Lesson 348. The title of today's lesson

is the countable and uncountable use of the word gossip. Okay let's take a look

Gerund

at the note here. When gossip is used in reference to talking about other

people's personal lives or other people's personal business,  it is an

uncountable noun. So that's how we use it most of the time. So the majority of the

time you'll probably think of it as an uncountable noun. In this situation,  we

mostly say some gossip or a lot of gossip. All right and and this is the one

where students of ESL may make a mistake.  Because sometimes they will put an "S"  on

gossip when they shouldn't.  So again with the X,  this is wrong. So

this is an example.  She loves to listen to gossips. No. She

loves to listen to gossip with the check.  Because this is uncountable

in this sense or we have another example here.  I heard some gossips about her

husband's affair. No.  Again I heard some gossip about her husband's affair. The

third one. We actually have three. You know because this is where students

usually make the mistake. He always has many gossips to share. He always has a

lot of gossip to share. That would be the correct way of saying it.

All right good. And let's continue here.  Now,  now gossip is a countable noun

refers to a person who likes to talk about gossip often. So, so somebody

could be a gossip. That sense is countable. Okay. So we have one example

here. Don't reveal any of your business to Jenny. She is a bit of a gossip or you

know,  maybe say,  that whole group over there they're just a bunch of gossips.

You could say it that way. So if you're referring to the person who likes to

talk gossip or talk about gossip then that could be countable. It's also good

to note this. In the noun phrase of some columnist or a gossip blog the word

gossip is singular. So just realize that.  So we have one example here for that.  Ann

Landers was famous for being a gossip columnist. Okay. All right. So I hope you

got it. The majority of the time gossip is uncountable when it refers to

people's business,  personal business or personal lives. Gossip is only singular

when it refers to a person. Okay.  I hope you got it. I hope it was clear. Thank you