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> You can't say "grift is occurring here" Sure you can; "grift" can be used as an abstract noun, much like "crime", e.g., "Crime is occurring here" vs. "A crim
by miles 2y ago
> You can't say "grift is occurring here"
Sure you can; "grift" can be used as an abstract noun, much like "crime", e.g., "Crime is occurring here" vs. "A crime is occurring here".
- Sniffnoy 2y agoThe term you're looking for here is "mass noun" or "uncountable noun", and... well I was going to say "no, it can't", but searching does turn up some uses, so, uh, I guess people are saying that now and I was wrong? It must be pretty new; I'm not seeing it in dictionaries. (Note that just because "crime" can be used as both a count noun and a mass noun doesn't mean "grift" can be! Most nouns are just one or the other, not both. Like Wiktionary has "crime" as both but "grift" as count only. But it seems like this new uncountable sense of "grift" is out there now, so people will have to update the dictionaries...)
- Sniffnoy 2y agoAdditional note: I'd still bet that the commenter was conflating the two words, however.