Grammar – ‘Some’: Singular vs Plural Form Noun Usage

grammatical-numberpronouns

After reading "Is everyone" singular or plural?", I would refrain from asking this question, but the husband of a colleague of mine (English professor, native speaker of British English) stated against it, so I am looking for further enlightenment.

He advocates some should be solely used to refer to plural forms. Thus,

some non-existent towns

is perfectly correct, but

some non-existent town

should be replaced by

a non-existent town

Is that true?

Best Answer

Some indeed can be use in this general sense.

If you visit OneLook, you'll see several meanings of the word some. One of them reads:

some used for referring to a person or thing without knowing or without saying exactly which one

So, saying:

We'll go to some beach tomorrow.

We'll stop at some restaurant on the way home.

are both perfectly acceptable. As a matter of fact, if you made the noun plural:

We'll stop at some restaurants on the way home.

That would imply that we are stopping at more than one restaurant.

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