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 To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/