Monday, January 21, 2019

uncountable nouns - Can some kind of [uncountable_noun] outnumber another kind of [uncountable_noun]?

I wanted to say that there was more anonymous feedback than registered feedback, so I considered saying:




Anonymous feedback outnumbers registered feedback





This seemed not quite right, so I said:




Anonymous feedback... er... instances outnumber registered feedback instances




This seemed not really to be an improvement at all, aesthetically at least.




Perhaps talking about one kind of feedback outnumbering another is alright, or has some justification since the feedback comes in discrete units (votes). But trying this with other uncountable nouns seemed worse...




Helpful information outnumbers useless information




That feels wrong...



So, can and should some quantity of an uncountable noun ever be said to outnumber another quantity of the same noun? Is there a better alternative than forming some compound countable noun (perhaps replacing outnumber with something else)?

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