Talk:immunization

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

We have immunizations but immunization says uncountable. Should it be both countable and uncountable, just countable or just uncountable? RJFJR 03:23, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I've added a sense. Reasonable?—msh210℠ 04:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The definition added is certainly reasonable:

• "The process by which an individual is exposed to a material that is designed to prime his or her immune system against that material."

But, as I read it, the emboldened words may make the definition read as countable. I would like this to be discussed a bit so that I can do a better job in this area, which continues to give me trouble. As I see it each use of "a" risks making the definition seem countable. I think the following is clearly uncountable:

• "The process by which individuals are exposed to materials that prime the immune system against infectious agents."

Is it necessary to do this "a"-nectomy to make a definition truly uncountable? DCDuring TALK 10:29, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, to some extent countability is independent of meaning — consider shrub/shrubbery, sign/signage, letter/mail, chair/furniture, knife/cutlery, and so on — so the only surefire to indicate that a sense is countable or uncountable is to tag it so. (I do think we should try for gloss definitions that retain certain properties of the headword, such as countability — I think it makes it easier for readers to assimilate the information, especially since many readers won't know the term "countable" — but I don't think it's necessary.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but you cannot correctly define shrubbery as "a" shrub or "a" bush or "a" plant, and so on for each of the pairs. For words that may have both countable and uncountable senses it seems to me important to make the uncountable sense clearly uncountable. I don't object to a lack of precision for those cases where a sense is labelled "uncountable and countable". I still find that we have many cases where something is labeled uncountable (at the sense level) when it is often used uncountably with that meaning. Often people do have good intuitions that a word has one (or more) uncountable sense, but the definition given does not reflect that. Sometimes the effort to define something uncountably reveals that the word is more often used countably beyond the world of textbooks. DCDuring TALK 17:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. I don't have a good solution to offer. —Ruakh_TALK 23:15, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

While I agree that a-nectomy is a good idea, I also agree that it's not necessary, and "The process by which individuals are exposed to materials that prime the immune system against infectious agents" doesn't specify that the material introduced is the one being primed against (although it may be obvious).—msh210℠ 06:48, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, not all (any?) w:immunisations use the exact same material as the target. That may be the intent in some cases, but often the target mutates. In other cases the vaccination agent is known to be merely a cost-effective approximation to the target. From wp: "Artificial active immunization is where the microbe, or parts of it, are injected into the person before they are able to take it in naturally. If whole microbes are used, they are pre-treated. Depending on the type of disease, this technique also works with dead microbes, parts of the microbe, or treated toxins from the microbe." Note the variety of derived materials that are used. DCDuring TALK 18:15, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Someone, somewhere, will find a way to make an English sentence which counts any uncountable noun.

Why don't we rename these properties mass noun and count noun, implying that that is their prevailing usage? The current usage (“uncountable”) seems absolute and practically prescriptive. —Michael Z. 2008-11-16 18:48 z

I'm afraid that to most non-native speakers such renaming would still imply the usage, not the prevailing usage. --Duncan MacCall 21:11, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm torn on this issue. "Mass noun" and "count noun" seem to be a bit more common among linguists today, but they're cumbersome for use in context labels, because "mass" is unintelligible, "mass noun" isn't the right part of speech, and "as a mass noun" is a bit unwieldy. Your argument doesn't work for me personally — I don't perceive "uncountable" as absolute, though logically I do see why you would perceive it that way (unqualified "un…able" is usually absolute) — but if there are other readers who also perceive it the way you do, then that would sway me. —Ruakh_TALK 23:15, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Did you mean "other" to be besides just MZajac and Duncan Macall? I thought I'd made my opinion on the absoluteness of "not comparable" clear perhaps too often previously. The idea of pushing the "uncountable" tag out of the inflection line to the sense line is a good one that doesn't force more change than people can accept. If we had a way of making clear what an "uncountable" gloss should look like, I'd have thought we could avoid the worst confusions. DCDuring TALK 00:41, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I mean "other" to be besides just Mzajac. (Does Duncan MacCall view "mass noun" as less absolute than "uncountable"? I can't tell.) —Ruakh_TALK 00:58, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

No, that was exactly my point: if I take "uncounable" to be absolute (unless eg exceptions for particular senses are mentioned) than just changing that tag to "mass noun" doesn't make it any less absolute in my eyes. --Duncan MacCall 07:15, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm in favour of normally placing an uncountable tag on the sense line. As DCDuring (and others) have pointed out, most uncountable nouns can be cited in a countable sense, or have a second gloss which is countable. So to put uncountable in the inflection line is equivalent to stating that "this word is never under any circumstances countable". As for "mass noun". Understand it, but don't like it, particularly in a dictionary. Why? Because of the word "mass" It seems OK to use to distinguish between e.g. "chicken (mass (unquantified amount of) noun sense)" and "a chicken (bird sense)". But how can e.g. "music" be considered as a "mass"? -- ALGRIF talk 09:46, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

One of my dictionaries includes senses of mass as “a large quantity or amount of something”. In this sense mass quite naturally quantifies both tangibles like sand and intangibles like music, time, poetry, smarts, good will, quiet.

I understand that uncountable is just a label with a conventional sense. But the word is a flat-out statement of impossibility, and just comes across as inaccurate. And not just when you consider that individual senses may be countable: most terms or senses which are clearly mass nouns (in the “uncountable” category) can be and are counted.

I also don't think recommending using it only on sense lines is a satisfactory solution:

1. It will keep showing up in many inflection lines, especially since the template en-noun explicitly displays it
2. It is not sensible to apply a label to multiple senses, when it blanket applies to the term

 —Michael Z. 2008-11-18 17:03 z

My point, (and I believe DCD champions this cause) is that it should not be in the inflection line at all. Only in the sense line. And I think you probably agree also, as "blanket" application is almost always incorrect. But really, this discussion should be on BP. (I seem to remember it has been already there more than once). -- ALGRIF talk 17:42, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Even so, “uncountable” is often applied to a sense which, though usually uncounted, is still countable. —Michael Z. 2008-11-19 18:52 z

I think "mass" in the sense of "mass noun" has little to do with "a large quantity or amount". You can talk about "a mass of people", and conversely, I agree with Algrif that "a mass of music" is awkward at best. "Mass noun" is a fixed expression, independent of its etymology, just as "uncountable" is. I'm not sure why you're so happy to twist the meaning of "mass" to explain "mass noun" away, yet so unwilling to acknowledge that "uncountable" could possibly mean something besides "absolutely never countable". —Ruakh_TALK 20:21, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

When I first encountered mass noun it seemed intuitive that it referred to something that was amassed, or accumulated as a single mass rather than in discrete units (there's no suggestion to use the phrase a mass of music).

But every time I read un-countable, I equate it with “not countable”, even though I may prefer a full-fat milk, experience passionate loves, or dislike the East-Coast damp. The plain meaning of the word directly contradicts a fact of the term it describes. —Michael Z. 2008-11-19 18:52 z

You're definitely entitled to your impressions and intuitions, but I don't share all of them. For me the sentence “One cannot count the noun (deprecated template usage) milk” sounds like absolute nonsense — not true, not false, just meaningless — so I feel no urge to interpret “The noun (deprecated template usage) milk is uncountable” as meaning it. Further, the suffix (deprecated template usage) -able doesn't always pertain to ability or possibility; it often pertains to suitability or fitness. —Ruakh_TALK 19:14, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

BTW, I agree that "uncountable" means "not countable"; I just don't interpret "countable" the same way you do. —Ruakh_TALK 20:10, 19 November 2008 (UTC)