Business_Spotlight_No3_202..

(Joyce) #1
SKILL UP! 21

GRAMMAR CHECK

QUANTIFIERS
Because these nouns are sin-
gular, we use “much” and not
“many” with them — at least
in questions and ne gated
sentences. In affirmative
sentences, we normally use
“a lot of” rather than “much”.
The compara tive form of
“much” is “more”; the super-
lative form is “(the) most”:

(^) We have a lot of informa­
tion from them.
(^) We don’t have much expe­
rience in this area.
(^) Most advertising is carried
out online.
To talk about small amounts
of a singular uncountable
noun, use “(a) little”. The
comparative form is “less”;
the superlative form is “the
least”:
(^) There’s very little content
here.
(^) You should watch less
news.
To refer to large quantities,
use “a huge/large/massive
amount of”. Informally, you
might also hear “a bunch of”:
(^) There is a huge amount of
content available.



  1. “Experience”
    This noun can be either countable
    or uncountable, depending on the
    meaning:


(^) We always deliver fantastic cus-
tomer experiences.
(= individual events/incidents)
(^) His experience in performance
marketing is limited.
(= knowledge/skills in general)



  1. “Data”
    In Latin, “data” is the plural form of
    “datum”. Native speakers of Eng-
    lish generally ignore this fact and
    treat “data”(pronounced [(deItE])
    as a singular uncountable noun.
    Only in the scientific world is
    “data” more likely to be treated as a
    plural form, in which case, the sin-
    gular is then “datum”(pronounced
    [(deItEm]):


(^) The collected data was incredi-
bly insightful.
We can combine “data” with “set”
to create a countable compound
noun with which we can focus on
a particular kind or group of indi-
vidual instances of data:
(^) How many data sets will you
need to calculate the results?
(^) This data set is incomplete.

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