In the video,
waters instead of
water is used in
“Hundreds of boats met their end in these deadly waters”
The word
water takes a plural form when it
- means water from a particular source (different waters make for different beers);
- refers to an area of sea near to and/or belonging to a particular country (by the waters of Babylon);
- refers to the water contained in a particular lake, river, or of a particular part of the earth (In the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico);
- describes a situation, usually one that is difficult, dangerous or not familiar (got into the murky waters of jealousy and relationships).
Many nouns which are more commonly seen as singular appear as plural in some specific contexts. However, certain nouns are always uncountable. For example, nouns that represent mass or abstract concepts such as
air, information, physics. There are also nouns which are found exclusively or almost exclusively in the plural, such as
scissors (there
are some
scissors.) In order to speak of those nouns as singular, we use quantity nouns, for instance,
a pair of (
there is a pair of scissors).
Complete the following sentences by selecting the appropriate forms of the words/nouns which fit the sentence contexts. Consult a dictionary when necessary.
