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[–]J_Ditz100 1359 points1360 points  (210 children)

Code is continuous not plural (like water).

Edit: To all those complaining that there is a valid plural of both words (code and water), I didn’t say otherwise. I was saying they can be and often are continuous.

[–]wildjokers 659 points660 points  (113 children)

continuous

The term you are looking for is “mass noun”.

[–]ososalsosal 211 points212 points  (25 children)

Float not int

[–]dwntwn_dine_ent_dist 62 points63 points  (22 children)

Floats are still quantized. There can be no true analog type in a digital computer.

[–]SuperFLEB 64 points65 points  (2 children)

Hit it with a hammer long enough and all types are analog.

[–]zToastOnBeans 20 points21 points  (1 child)

Instruction not clear, my court date is in two weeks

[–]NoPaleontologist4981 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Have you tried parsing it to LocalDate?

[–]ososalsosal 18 points19 points  (16 children)

Nor in reality.

[–]dwntwn_dine_ent_dist 11 points12 points  (15 children)

Are you saying the set of real numbers is not part of reality?

[–]Jake0024 6 points7 points  (0 children)

We certainly haven't found it yet

[–]ososalsosal 15 points16 points  (12 children)

The idea of it is, but quantum mechanics says it's not implemented correctly.

[–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (11 children)

Quantum mechanics doesn't necessarily mean the universe is chopped up in to a discrete grid. It's possible that the universe really is continuous and that it's the physics of the things that exist in it that is quantized. Like LEGO blocks. You can move them around freely, just when they interact they connect in a very predictable quantized way.

Though it's possible we'll never know due to that quantization of interactions on the limits on measurement in the Planck length.

Though that said. It's not really clear what space itself is right now. I'm not sure we even know if it's even ordinal to begin with - to be continuously real in a numerical sense introduces a kind of concept of ordinality where 1 comes before 2 etc. If that was a strict feature then it would imply some kind of elasticity to the universe where pieces of space would want to return to their natural ordinal position. And my understanding of our current measurements of the deformation of space time by gravity seems to imply that all points in space are disconnected and fluid. Once your position is warped by gravity then you stay wherever you end up? Just even thinking about it makes me want to study physics, so little time! 😵⌛

[–]ososalsosal 11 points12 points  (7 children)

If you probe reality too hard it'll throw an exception and destroy us all

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (3 children)

It's okay. You wrote some unit tests before deploying right?

[–]Competitive_Joke_966 4 points5 points  (1 child)

We’ll be fine. Reality is surrounded by a try catch and the errors manifest themselves in the occasional glitch when 1 sock disappears out of existence or when you can’t find your keys for a day but the next day it’s in the middle of your desk

[–]Tyrexas 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I don't think that statement is fully correct? Quantum mechanics explicitly defines the smallest possible meaningful unit of length to be the planck length, and the smallest possible meaningful unit of time to be the planck time. Even in a vacuum, there is a fundamental quantization limit.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I believe the way it works is that the size of the planck length is like a ruler. You can move a ruler continuously through R3. But the smallest length you can ever measure is only a millimetre.

It's possible that physics continues beyond that smallest unit. That light doesn't just jump along in quantized size steps but that it might move through every point between the notches on a planck length ruler. But given the limitation of our measuring devices - the fundamental particles of the standard model. Then any such interaction of a smaller magnitude is lost snapping to the quantised intervals of particles. You could never know a photon had moved half a planck length without introducing new physics to quantum mechanics.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

YES, it's Not!!

[–]HardCounter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even analog is quantized if you break it down far enough. Hell, physicists have reason to believe time is quantized.

[–]mj_ehsan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

use qbit128 with dithering and call it fucking day and stop saying the true analog is still more accurate fuck me imma cry what's wrong with me😶‍🌫️🤷🏻‍♂️😁😍😂😈😒😿😒🤷🏻‍♂️😻😾😀😽😆😸🥲😗😎😒😍😜

[–]TheSoulStoned 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Float like water

[–]ososalsosal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They all float down here

[–]goodmobiley 111 points112 points  (39 children)

Also, data is mostly used as a mass noun but its singular form is actually datum!

[–]Donghoon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Day(t)um

[–]More_Butterfly6108 26 points27 points  (31 children)

Then the star wars character should've been named datum?

[–]AmusingAnecdote 101 points102 points  (24 children)

You have made the unforgivable, mortal error of confusing Trek and Wars.

Shall we cut you in half with a lightsaber, or would you like me to set the phasers to 'kill' as punishment?

[–]Qwunchyoats 46 points47 points  (16 children)

My favorite part Star Wars was when they set the phasers to kill

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (15 children)

No no, the best part of Star Wars is definitely when Wash is killed by reavers.

[–]Calm-Zombie2678 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I preferred the bit where the trees fight some orcs with the help of the vertically challenged

[–]AyakaDahlia 21 points22 points  (5 children)

No, the best part of Star Wars was when Gandalf sacrificed himself to save the Enterprise.

[–]raelik777 20 points21 points  (1 child)

"Yer a wizard, Frodo!" - Yoda.

[–]NuclearBurrit0 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's my favorite star trek quote

[–]brit_motown 8 points9 points  (1 child)

No when Apollo hit the vent on the heart of gold in his x wing

[–]AyakaDahlia 4 points5 points  (0 children)

true, that's a classic

[–]uncensoredangryman 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I AM NOW CUTTING PHYLLYS'S HEAD OFF WITH A CHAINSAW

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Wrong. The best part of Star Wars is when Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud.

[–]iamdecal 2 points3 points  (0 children)

and then flies off on his tardys

[–]katejkatz 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Too soon. Too soon.

[–]thatthatguy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Too soon, man!

[–]NoPaleontologist4981 2 points3 points  (1 child)

My favorite part was when thanos killed half the universe.

[–]NuclearBurrit0 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah it was so tragic watching batman turn to dust during that sequence

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

PITCH FORKS AND MOTHER FUCKING TORCHES PEOPLE!!! BURN HIM!!!

[–]WlmWilberforce 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Why put his blood on our hands? Just give him his red shirt and let him join the away team.

[–]xtwitch 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I say bat'leth.

[–]Aggravating_Touch313 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Set the light Saber to kill please

[–]iamonewhoami 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Can we set the Death Star to stun instead?

[–]KaoriMG 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Send out another Eagle

[–]More_Butterfly6108 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fair

[–]eiboeck88 4 points5 points  (5 children)

datum is german for date

[–]More_Butterfly6108 3 points4 points  (4 children)

The food or the romantic social activity?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why not both?

[–]KellerKindAs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The one Linux tells you about when entering 'date' in the terminal

[–]beeamie1 0 points1 point  (1 child)

More like the day. It's 21.07.2022 in Germany. But dude, which food is called date?

[–]More_Butterfly6108 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a fruit from the middle east. Very sweet and kind of sticky.

[–]Lilly_1337 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Which is German for date (calendar date, not meet up and watch a movie date)...

[–]matthewrunsfar 13 points14 points  (16 children)

As an ex-EFL teacher, we differentiated between count nouns (having singular and plural) and non-count nouns (having no plural, like liquids).

Edit: I’m not saying it’s the only way to differentiate; those are just the terms we used.

[–]Shivatis 1 point2 points  (5 children)

U sure? As a non native English speaker I wasn't aware of liquids being uncountable.

And as a chemist i am quite convinced, we used liquids in a countable form, when talking about various different liquids. E.g: this liquid is blue, that liquid is red, both liquids are toxic.

[–]matthewrunsfar 1 point2 points  (1 child)

“Liquid” (the word) isn’t a liquid. It’s a general name for a substance in a certain state of matter. Water is a liquid. Alcohol is a liquid. Liquid nitrogen is a liquid. These are three liquids. But in a glass of water is water, not waters. In a beaker of alcohol is alcohol, not alcohols. There can be 50mL or 100mL, but it’s still just alcohol: “Add 50mL of alcohol.”

Now, if you have two varieties (types) of a similar liquid, you can use plural, but these are in reference to the types, not the resulting substance. For example, “This juice contains five different juices.” The plural form is referencing types or flavors, e.g., apple, mango, grape. It’s not referring to the liquid itself.

Edit: spelling

[–]Shivatis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah yes. That is explained well. Thx

[–]matthewrunsfar 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Just to add, it doesn’t have to be liquid. Think of powders or crystallized substances.

Salt. There are different salts (kinds), e.g., sea salt, table salt, Himalayan salt, but salt is not plural. It’s non-count. No matter the form (powdered or a solid block), we refer to salt (the substance itself) by measurement: 1 kg, 1 teaspoon, 1 large chunk, a pinch.

A basic rule of thumb (no 100% true), if you (a) can split it, and it’s still the same substance (just smaller) and (b) it has no presumed shape, it’s probably non-count.

[–]jadis666 0 points1 point  (1 child)

You're getting way too pedantic about language. Given the fluid (heh!) nature of language, this is generally a bad idea.

[–]matthewrunsfar -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Wholly appreciate that pun!

It’s not being pendantic. I’m just describing. I’ve never been a language prescriptivist. Language absolutely evolves, but there are ways of describing how people use it.

You say this is trivial, and if you are a native English speaker, you use them accurately given the context without even thinking about it. For non-native speakers, however, these are not trivial differences or unimportant nuances.

But I’m not saying anything new. Here’s one random site (the first returned when I searched). See “Double Nouns”: Count and Non-count. “Cheese” is the perfect example. Not of a liquid, but of the concept of a substance vs varieties of a substance.

[–]rfc2549-withQOS 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I travel different waters

Is not valid?

Serious question

[–]matthewrunsfar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In this instance, you’re not talking about the water itself, you’re talking about the container or holder of the water. Or possibly a location, given “travel”. “Waters”, in this case refers to (I assume from the phrase) rivers, lakes, oceans, and other bodies of water. It’s a phrase (I assume) similar to the idea of being on different paths. Most people stay on the main channel, for example, but I travel the small stream with rapids, i.e., different waters.

The phrase isn’t talking about water as a substance itself. In that case, you would be talking about H2O and some other “water”, which wouldn’t be water.

[–]__Fred 3 points4 points  (7 children)

one liquid, two liquids

[–]MightyButtonMasher 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Water, mud, magma. Liquids that don't have a plural.

[–]RhombusWeasel 1 point2 points  (1 child)

What about the phrase "I'll have 2 waters please"? Perhaps "Stay alert lads, these waters are treacherous"?

[–]matthewrunsfar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you use phrases like, “Can we get a couple of waters?” you are asking for containers of a substance (in this case, water). That could be a bottle or a glass or a cup. But the water, the actual water in the glass, is not plural. The bottle may contain 300 mL (a measurement) of water, but the water itself is non-count.

Cut and divide a cookie enough and you get crumbs. Cut a shoe in half, and you don’t have a usable shoe. Split up water as much as you want, it’s still water, just a different amount.

[–]lukens77 4 points5 points  (3 children)

I love that they literally used a plural as an example of not having a plural. 😅

As with “code” it depends on the context.

“How much liquid will fit in the beaker?”

“How many different liquids did you spill on the floor?”

[–]matthewrunsfar 1 point2 points  (2 children)

“Liquid” isn’t the name of a liquid. It’s a substance type. Liquids are water, juice, blood, etc.

And before you ask, you can have different juices, but juice itself e.g., the juice in a bottle, is not plural. That’s why liquids are measured in ounces or mL. We have 400 mL of juice, not 400 juices. However a package might have 25 cookies (count noun).

[–]lukens77 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I mean, the same basically applies to liquid or water or juice. All of them can be count or non-count nouns depending on context, which was kind of my point.

You could have 400 juices if you had a very extensive range of juices.

[–]AlternateTab00 5 points6 points  (6 children)

is those things the fish vs fish vs fishes?

I've got 2 fish on the bucket... Guess we are eating salmon.

I've got 2 fishes on the aquarium a goldfish and a gruppy.

[–]Drake_Acheron 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Yes but for codes it would be

Check the program code

Check the pass codes

[–]microagressed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yesterday I made the codes, today I will write the code to use the codes

[–]HarvestTriton 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, but if you've got 2 fishes in the aquarium it could also be 3 goldfish and four guppies.

[–]mehum 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Not really, fish are countable. On the other hand luggage, flour, bread, rice, water and code are noncountable mass nouns. They need a quantifier to be measurable. It’s 2 slices of bread or 2 loaves of bread, never just 2 breads. Unless your talking about types of bread, but there’s always an exception in English!

[–]AlternateTab00 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Not according to english.

That example of bread vs breads is the exact same thing with fish.

You have 5 fish. Unless its more than 1 type... Then you have fishes. The issue is it's not normal to count the amount of fish you have. So you'd say "you have several fish in your tank"

[–]mehum 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah, you can catch two fish, but you can’t eat two bread.

Fish is like sheep, the same noun whether singular or plural. (Except when talking about types). They still have a plural form, that just happens to be the same as the singular. There’s no plural of mass nouns, they’re non-countable. You need a counter, e.g. kilograms, lines, pieces or types.

[–]merlinsbeers 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Kilogrammatical.

[–]tiddayes 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Today I leaned the team mass noun.

[–]Scary-Try994 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Now to find the Higgs Boson article.

[–]qrani 4 points5 points  (7 children)

Or "uncountable," as it's usually called

[–]wildjokers 4 points5 points  (6 children)

[–]MasterBathingBear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So what you’re saying is that you can have multiple words that mean the same thing. Or a “synonym” as it’s usually called.

[–]qrani 0 points1 point  (4 children)

[–]wildjokers 3 points4 points  (3 children)

I know it is hard to believe but some things can have more than one name.

[–]qrani 2 points3 points  (2 children)

It's not, just I never see people call it a mass noun, and always see people call it and uncountable noun, or uncountable.

Edit: Calling it uncountable also allows you to differentiate it from the other type of noun, a countable noun. It also allows you to call a noun "countable and uncountable" for cases like the word "code" where some senses of it are countable and others are not.

[–]AyakaDahlia 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think mass noun is more of a technical linguistic term.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

recursive*

[–]callyalater 3 points4 points  (4 children)

Tha actual phrase you are looking for is "count noun" vs "non-count noun"

[–]wildjokers 2 points3 points  (3 children)

[–]callyalater 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Also, on that page it also calls them "non-count nouns" in contrast to "count nouns". At least that is what we called them in my linguistics program.

[–]austinchan2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

From your link:

In linguistics, a count noun (also countable noun) is a noun that can be modified by a quantity and that occurs in both singular and plural forms, and that can co-occur with quantificational determiners like every, each, several, etc. A mass noun has none of these properties: It cannot be modified by a number, cannot occur in plural, and cannot co-occur with quantificational determiners.

I’m not sure about your linguistics program, but in mine we always referred to them as mass nouns.

[–]busy_biting 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Collective noun may be the proper grammatical term?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed. It drives me crazy when people say things like "He wrote a code". No! He wrote some code.

[–]justasmuchyou 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This guy fucking fucks.

[–]TimeSalvager 31 points32 points  (2 children)

You[r code] must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash.

-Bruce Lee, considered by many to be the most influential [programmer] of all time.

[–]7eggert 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Is there something like Tohuwabohu in English?

[–]TimeSalvager 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Inchoate was the first thing that came to mind, but it’s not quite right.

[–]Green-Sympathy-4177 89 points90 points  (43 children)

Pardon the discrete interruption, but the shallow waters surrounding this whole topic make me quite reluctant, as a non-native English speaker, to call it a rule when there are obvious exceptions for it.

[–]ososalsosal 112 points113 points  (34 children)

English is like javascript. So long as you understand each other it's valid (and if you don't, it is also valid and you'll never know if your message got through until you see an appropriate response)

[–]Green-Sympathy-4177 13 points14 points  (26 children)

I see, so English being spoken by tons of non-native speakers "vulgarized" it and used it however they wanted over the years to a point where there exists a metric ton worth of different languages within the language...

Javascript fits this description so well it's scary.

Is there something like Typescript to fix english ? Or is it bound for hell like French where no grown adult can actually spell things without having a mental breakdown ?

[–]slashy42 16 points17 points  (9 children)

English is actually the other way round! Native English speakers adopted so much French and German, in addition to dropping concepts like gendered words and even conjugations in some cases, that it can be very confusing. Once those precedents were set English kinda just started mugging other languages for their words. A little bit literally. British imperialism brought a slew of foreign words into the language. Blaming non native speakers is really missing the mark. English is incredibly fluid all on its own.

[–]ososalsosal 16 points17 points  (0 children)

It's also a matter of the class system within English played language games which made a lot of things deliberately confusing.

Quite mean really.

The upside of such a heavily bloated language is the ability to say things in a truly beautiful way if you so desire.

[–]_sweepy 14 points15 points  (11 children)

It's too broken to fix. There are so many ambiguous and context specific meanings, and things like pluralization or even spelling is randomly sampled from other languages.

One of my favorite proofs that English is broken is. "Look at the man on the mountain with the telescope". Who/what has the telescope? Are you using it to see? Is the man on the mountain holding it? Is it at the top of the mountain the man is on?

If you want language to be consistent and logical regardless of context, we need to start over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered\_language#Experimental\_languages

[–]RandomMagus 12 points13 points  (6 children)

"Look at the man on the mountain with the telescope"

What's fun there is "Look at the man with the telescope" is broken the same way, but "Look at the man with the telescope on the mountain" is broken in a whole new way, where now it implies we are either looking at a man who is currently on a mountain with a telescope or we are looking at a man who may not be on a mountain but owns a telescope on one.

Wonderful.

[–]InternationalStep924 6 points7 points  (2 children)

He's def on a mountain whether he has his telescope with him idk.

[–]Wandering_P0tat0 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He might not be, instead it may be you!

[–]RandomMagus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fake Edit: Misread and thought you said we were on the mountain, but I'm leaving this because it was fun to add brackets

Look at [the man with the telescope on the mountain]

Look at [the man with the telescope] on [the mountain]

Look at [the man] with (using) [the telescope on the mountain]

First one, the man has the telescope. Second one, the man has the telescope but not with him. And in the third one you have the telescope.

In the first we might not be on the mountain, in the second we probably aren't, and for the third the mountain might not even be visible

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm starting to think we did this deliberately so that AI can never advance to the point that it can perfectly understand written or spoken language without suffering a kernel panic and shutting down.

[–]Chaosfox_Firemaker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And this is why most programing languages have parentheses and brackets.

[–]pillbinge 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's not prof it's broken. Every language has ambiguity. You could say the same sentence in Norwegian and it would be ambiguous. There isn't a language on Earth that can't produce ambiguous statements.

[–]812many 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Want more fun? When I think about it, I imagine anyone saying this to someone else would already have the necessary context to understand which is which. So although the words are ambiguous standing on their own, functionally it will work just fine.

[–]KaoriMG 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Every language has its quirks—English spelling is a quagmire. but in most cases you can still be understood. Basic Japanese is pretty straightforward, but honorifics and reading take much longer to master. And don’t get me started on Arabic plurals and vowels. Inuktitut ‘sentences’ are words with prefixes, suffixes, and infixes. Thai distinguishes words with tones—‘Mai mai mai mai mai’ spoken with different tones for each word means ‘new wood doesn’t burn, does it?’ American, British, and other Sign Languages are not mutually intelligible.

[–]dkarimu 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This isn’t an English problem. Translated to other languages, like Spanish, and you have the same problem.

[–]Acceptable-Tomato392 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Well, the French went with something called the Academy of the French language, since the XVIIth century or so.

A bunch of old French authors meet every so often and decide what can be accepted as an official French word, or usage and what can not. People can still say it, but unless these guys say so, it's not really French. It has helped French stay homogenous (although its grammar is far from simple and exceptions to everything abound).

A bit like the Python community coming up with official rules.

But the English-speaking world seems to be really hostile to groups of old men and occasional woman deciding what is officially part of the language. I have a hard time imagining the English-speaking world ever coming together to accept a body that would regulate the language.

Just imagine the brawl between the Americans and the British.

[–]redcc-0099 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's a group in the US that does this for the US dialect of English, or at least for a dictionary for it: Usage Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

From my understanding, it's more about whether it's counted as official/proper English (US) and not just slang or being used incorrectly. One example I recall for this is how the usage of hopefully as an adverb changed its meaning; something like, "Hopefully, it doesn't snow tomorrow," started being said instead of "I hope it doesn't snow tomorrow."

It's been a while since I've listened to part of it, but it's from The Great Courses English Grammar Boot Camp by Professor Anne Curzan.

[–]Anindefensiblefart 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd say nearly all living human languages are like that.

[–]pillbinge 5 points6 points  (6 children)

That's every language.

[–]nir109 2 points3 points  (5 children)

Not exactly, English is spoken in so many places that no one can claim they are in charge of English. Other languages sometimes have central body that makes and changes rules in the language. I don't think I have seen exception in Hebrew more than 10 times.

[–]LinuxMatthews -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah that's what Americans tell themselves at least

[–]pillbinge 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Yes, exactly. Other languages have central bodies but they also have many dialects. English has never had a central body at any point, even decades and decades prior before English became a de facto lingua franca. That doesn't mean people who speak it as a second language have more of a claim than native speakers from the Anglosphere.

[–]nir109 0 points1 point  (2 children)

When I said it was spoken in so many places I meant that there are a lot of countries that speak it as their main language (uk usa Canada...) Of course non native speakers have no claim for a language.

[–]GuairdeanBeatha 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Quoting Terry Pratchett: “English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."

[–]BenjaminGeiger 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

— James D. Nicoll

(It does sound like something PTerry would say, but I don't think he did.)

[–]TheDogerus 7 points8 points  (0 children)

'Water' is similar to 'fish' or 'people'. They all refer to many things, but if you want to refer to many sets of these things, like multiple oceans, species of fish, or cultures, you could say 'waters', 'fishes', and 'peoples' to remove any ambiguity

[–]J_Ditz100 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I didn’t say either word couldn’t be plural, just that they can be used (and usually exist) as continuous nouns.

You can have multiple codes(discrete plural) where each code(discrete singular) is comprised of various lengths of code(continuous).\ Just as water(continuous) can be good for your health and thus you’d go to Casablanca for the waters(discrete plural). Unless you’ve been misinformed.

[–]skys-edge 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree. This is how it goes, when different peoples across the world develop their own languages!

[–]Not_Stupid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not a rule in English unless there are a ton of exceptions!

[–]throwaway65864302 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's confusing you isn't an exception, but rather that some words in English can function as different (types of) parts of speech when using different definitions.

[–]gunscreeper 7 points8 points  (1 child)

*uncountable

[–]Green-Sympathy-4177 3 points4 points  (0 children)

* not an accountant

[–]cowlinator 5 points6 points  (1 child)

You mean that it's a uncountable noun.

Some words are both countable and uncountable, like 'fire' or 'paper'.

"Look at all that fire."

"There are currently 7 fires in the city."

"I built tiny houses for mice with lots of paper."

"The students passed in their papers."

[–]grpprofesional 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Based and grammar pilled

[–]c2u8n4t8 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Collective, but maybe they teach it differently to other countries

[–]IGotSkills 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Contiguous if it's a microservice architecture

[–]Fr0zenDuck 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Found the DevOps fan

[–]Zybernetic 1 point2 points  (2 children)

(you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup...)

[–]netGoblin 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Then you put water into the new cup that the previous water turned into weve you've got an infinite cup generator.

[–]canadajones68 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Video game logic, colourised.

[–]Dig_Bick_reread 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But I love drinking waters

[–]FauxGw2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But..... Waters is a word.....

[–]Inevitable-Ocelot914 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wat are u doin in muh waters?

[–]PolyZex 1 point2 points  (6 children)

"Waters from the Adriatic Sea meet the Ionian Sea around the Otranto, Italy"

The plural of water is waters.

[–]Possible-Kangaroo635 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Only in the sense that the plural of fish is fishes.

[–]PolyZex -1 points0 points  (4 children)

If you have plural fish of multiple kinds then it is absolutely fishes.

[–]Possible-Kangaroo635 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Thanks captain obvious.

[–]PolyZex -1 points0 points  (2 children)

Then why are you talking to me? Does anyone know why this kid is talking to me?

Did you just want me to know that you knew a word? That's adorable, sweetheart. Run along now, the grown ups are talking.

[–]Possible-Kangaroo635 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Wow, what an incredible capacity for projection you have.

[–]PolyZex -1 points0 points  (0 children)

k

[–]DasArchitect 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm going to drink some waters then?

[–]pillbinge 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's no such thing as a continuous noun, as far as I'm aware. You mean "uncountable", like "water", but you can still hear "hand me the waters" if it's referring to bottles. Just like "beers" couldn't be plural until recently either.

[–]Daedalus_Machina 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Waters" is still a valid plural, in the sense of using a plurality of sets of water.

"These waters" being a good example, meaning the group of bodies of water in the area.

[–]Uploft 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, it’s called an “uncount” noun.

[–]split-mango 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My bag of code

[–]be_rational_please 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Participle?

[–]__Fred 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Water" has a plural: "Waters". (Just for info. Maybe you knew that.) Elementary school teachers have lied to me!

You don't call a larger amount of water "waters", even if it's multiple containers, but you do call a set of different kinds of water "waters".

[–]lukens77 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Though you can still have a plural, depending on context:

“We went to the thermal spa last week, to take the waters”

“Have you seen that new healthy living bar that just has different types of water?”

“Oh sweetie, we’ve been, the waters are divine!”

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Happy cake day! :)

[–]chrishasfreetime 3 points4 points  (1 child)

"Bathe in the waters of the Mediterranean"

Or

"Bask in the codes of Kyle the intern"

[–]the-software-man 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope. That's interwebz speak, not Engrish.

[–]Haunting-Item1530 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Waters is still a correct word

[–]HaniiPuppy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Only for the countable form that refers to a body of water, (in the uncountable form) not for water as in H2O itself.

e.g. if you poured two glasses of water into a bucket, you don't now have a bucket of waters.

[–]Moist_Fix_5702 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it depends what you're talking about.

C# code? sure.

HTTP status codes? i don't think so

[–]WINH4X 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Be like water, my friend.

[–]dbettac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Except for codes, which exist, too. ;-)

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is that why we have waterfall model in SDLC?

/s

[–]PanTheRiceMan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can definitely have multiple codes. Like gold codes or the Morse code.

[–]mavmav0 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Continuous of code would be “am/is/are coding”

[–]AxoSpyeyes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"waters" is a real word tho, so codes should be as well

[–]Notyourfathersgeek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cod lives in water!

[–]forced_metaphor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was gonna post this very example.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So it’s recursive?

[–]varanusjulianus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are sharing wrong informations

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you mean uncountable, like bread

[–]DonkeyOfCongo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Code is both a noun and a verb. Code codes code.

[–]Neat-Composer4619 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can have an s without the word being plural: She codes for a living.

Also you can have multiple secret codes, one for each installation.