Hello:

 

I would be grateful for your thoughts as to whether or not embarrassment
is a countable or uncountable noun or both. In the phrase "to protect
the State Department from political embarrassment" it seems to me to be
an uncountable noun; yet in the phrase "an embarrassment of riches,"
embarrassment follows the property of a countable noun, i.e., it can be
modified by the indefinite article. 

 

Can one say I faced several embarrassments as opposed to I faced several
kinds of embarrassment? i.e., embarrassment as a count noun is an
instance of embarrassment whereas embarrassment as a noncount noun is
the state of being embarrassed? And is there a reliable resource for
checking the status of common nouns?

 

Thanks for your thoughts-

 

Natalie Gerber

SUNY Fredonia

 

 

 


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