The following is an excerpt from the book titled "On the move" written by Oliver Sacks.
I was surprised to find, at one point, that I had drunk, in tiny increments, almost half the bottle. I noticed no effect, so I continued reading and sipping from the bottle, increasingly upended now it was half-empty. …… The bottle was now empty. I still felt no effects; the stuff must be much weaker than they make out, I thought, even though it said "100 proof" on the label.
The singular or plural problem always has me confused. In the above, could anyone please explain to me why the author wrote "I noticed no effect"(not "no effects") and "I still felt no effects"(not "no effect")? Or are they just interchangeable?
Best Answer
As @xxxxxx correctly points out in their answer, a plural noun can follow no, which is termed a determiner.
For example:
In the first sentence, the speaker states that the cabinet does not contain a bottle. This bottle could contain any substance, for instance it might be medicine, alcohol or even oil.
In the second sentence, the speaker says the cabinet doesn't contain any bottles.
If we replace no with a and some respectively, we'd get
Effect is a countable noun
Ingesting medicine prescribed by a doctor should produce at least one positive effect in the patient, it should alleviate one or more symptoms of the illness.
But medicines can also produce one or more negative effects, which are often referred to as
side effects
Likewise, if we changed the OP's first example, we'd obtain the following
and in its plural form