stcredzero comments on Advices needed for a presentation on rationality - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Worthstream 13 June 2012 10:41AM

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Comment author: stcredzero 13 June 2012 06:54:04PM *  3 points [-]

The idiomatic wording would be, "Advice needed for a presentation on rationality." Advice is a type of information, so making it plural is redundant. This is also why you never hear people saying, "I need your advices." (Or, for that matter, "I need your helps.")

EDIT: However, it's idiomatic to say, "I need your services," as well as, "I need your service." It could be that people who provide service generally provide possibly multiple types of service. The tenor of "I need your service" is more imperative, however. There's more of a presumption of the asker knowing what they want ahead of time, versus "I need your services." The above doesn't apply to advice/advices, however. It may be arbitrary.

Comment author: Worthstream 14 June 2012 10:18:09AM *  0 points [-]

Thank you! As you may have guessed, english is not my first language. While it is easy to find grammar rules, it is actually difficult to find informations on the correct wording to choose.

Comment author: arundelo 14 June 2012 07:06:51PM 2 points [-]

The concept to be aware of here is mass noun versus count noun. A lot of words can be used both ways (often with slightly different meanings) but "advice" and "information" are always mass nouns. (Which means they are grammatically singular but cannot take an indefinite article; that is, you don't say "an advice" or "an information".)

Comment author: stcredzero 14 June 2012 06:46:59PM *  1 point [-]

You're welcome. "Information" should be singular for the original reason discussed in this thread.