For each plural below, give the corresponding noun for a mass of those objects considered collectively. To help you get started, three examples are given.
Not all of these are precisely analogous to one another.
"flora" refers to whole plants, not to pieces of plants. "psalter" and "office" refer to the places where you find psalms and officials, respectively, not to the psalms and officials themselves.
It's true that rodents and flies are fauna, but they also belong to the far more specific category of vermin, so I've chosen not to accept "fauna" as an alternative.
You need to have a few more acceptable answers. For example, sweets for candy. I would never call it candy. I'm not totally sure how I even got it. How about herd for cows as well? I liked the quiz, I just think it's quite strict answer-wise.
I think it's a difference between American English and British English. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.) What we call candy, they call sweets..
I agree. In the UK we don't really use the word 'candy', whereas sweets is a general term for any type of confection. (Happy memories of visiting the sweet shop as a child!) I tried sweets first but then tried candy, knowing that this site tends to favour US English.
There are herds of many kinds of animals. Cattle is specific to cows, however in many of the Regency romance novels I read, the dashing, rich noblemen of the early 1800s often referred to their horses as their cattle, so apparently it wasn't always specific to cows. (I'm assuming that's no longer the case in Britain.)
Yes what the USA calls candy the UK calls sweets, but sweets is not a mass noun as it is countable. Confectionery is a mass noun, but I read that is already being accepted.
I'm familiar with the word "bishopry." And while I don't wish to malign your favorite dictionaries, it took me less than two minutes online to find several uses of the word from texts more than a century old.
Bishopric is definitely not right, as a) it refers to the area under a bishop's authority, like a diocese, and b) it's not only NOT a mass noun, it's not even a plural noun. It's a singular noun – you can talk about multiple bishoprics.
Main arguments are from people that do not really get what a mass noun is though.
(or have forgotten that is what the quiz was asking for, like how you start out answering countries on a quiz, but end up giving capitals and not getting why it doesn't work. Usually though, by the time you write your complaint, you should have figured out the subject of the quiz)
Never heard of "officialdom" but... seems like there are lots and lots of other potential answers that could go there, many of which I tried and were not accepted. Fun quiz, though.
Strange quiz, I didn't really understand what you were asking for, and since the average is only 16, I'm probably not the only one... of course, now that I see the answers, it seems rather simple and I kick myself.
How about pests for vermin? Pests could be a lot of things, like your neighbors, for example. But it wouldn't be wrong to say that rats and flies are pests.
Since there are no shoes or boots etc given as example I am not sure it completely covers it, thought there is a big overlap and I tried it too, since apparently I didnt know how to spell hosiery, I tried hosery and hoisery.. (things you hoist up ;) )
(though I have never heard anyone say it and actually can't remember when or where I have seen it written down, must have atleast once seen it somewhere, the odds are to big to make it up randomly ;) But am fine with not getting it, English is not my language and like I said haven't really come across it ( maybe it is this site I have seen it before?)
Could you please accept sweets for candy? In the UK, candy is something very specific (basically just sugar), whereas what you have listed would be called sweets.
Quick trick: (All) / (All of) / (All the) / (The entire) ____, or with different similar starts, (no plural) must refer to every unit of the individual thing. If it is only every unit within a limited scope, that limited scope should be inherited from the original thing, not implied separately by the collective term.
e.g. 1: 'All cattle', not 'all herd'; 'herd' implies a limited spatial proximity that cows don't inherently have
e.g. 2: 'The entire citizenry'; while this refers only to citizens of a particular thing (which may be the universe anyway), the term 'citizen' implied that it was of a particular thing, so this is fine.
e.g. 3: 'The entire ancestry'; this lacks information on scope - whose ancestors? But that information is lacking when not provided in the original term 'ancestor' as well: 'The ancestor'. One could alternatively speak of 'my ancestor' or 'my entire ancestry'.
Other than this requirement, try to keep scope small to avoid being vaguer than the quiz intended
Cool idea, but you shouldn't be so strict about allowing different words that mean basically the same thing, like herd for cows, pests for vermin, etc. It basically turns this into a game of "what word am I thinking of?"
The answers don't consistently meet the criteria set out by the quiz description, and in many cases there are several legitimate answers that are not accepted.
Got 26 :) not bad after just waking up after hardly any sleep. And english not being my mother-tongue.
I'm sure this will prompt immature hatefull comments... But I am just proud, that being so ill I still managed to do rather well. (Atleast sómething is well...)
Interesting quiz. I missed cutlery cuz I was going to do it but then I got silverware and I didn't realize there were 2 separate ones. Guess I got both the first time I took it though
(or have forgotten that is what the quiz was asking for, like how you start out answering countries on a quiz, but end up giving capitals and not getting why it doesn't work. Usually though, by the time you write your complaint, you should have figured out the subject of the quiz)
And shouldn't cutlery work for both of the last two?- they're basically the same.
(though I have never heard anyone say it and actually can't remember when or where I have seen it written down, must have atleast once seen it somewhere, the odds are to big to make it up randomly ;) But am fine with not getting it, English is not my language and like I said haven't really come across it ( maybe it is this site I have seen it before?)
e.g. 1: 'All cattle', not 'all herd'; 'herd' implies a limited spatial proximity that cows don't inherently have
e.g. 2: 'The entire citizenry'; while this refers only to citizens of a particular thing (which may be the universe anyway), the term 'citizen' implied that it was of a particular thing, so this is fine.
e.g. 3: 'The entire ancestry'; this lacks information on scope - whose ancestors? But that information is lacking when not provided in the original term 'ancestor' as well: 'The ancestor'. One could alternatively speak of 'my ancestor' or 'my entire ancestry'.
Other than this requirement, try to keep scope small to avoid being vaguer than the quiz intended
Luckily I figured it out at the last second.
The answers don't consistently meet the criteria set out by the quiz description, and in many cases there are several legitimate answers that are not accepted.
Also 'wardrobe' for clothes.
I'm sure this will prompt immature hatefull comments... But I am just proud, that being so ill I still managed to do rather well. (Atleast sómething is well...)
Also I put ornamentation but my swipe keyboard didn't recognise it :( (oh of course it does now, typical haha)
Great quiz!