Mixing countability; how to correctly say "there is plenty of rice, earthquakes and typhoons"?

Question

In this question I wrote the following sentence, knowing full well that it has problems.

Where I live right now there is plenty of rice, earthquakes and typhoons.

Both earthquake and typhoon are countable nouns, while rice in this context is probably considered uncountable.

I could split this up into two sentences, or separate the rice from the other two within the sentence, for example: Where I live right now there are plenty of earthquakes and typhoons to go along with the rice although I'm sure someone else could find a more graceful way to do it.

There are some possibly helpful recommendations in this answer but I'm not sure how to apply them here.

But here I am asking if there is a way that I can keep the three nouns as close together as possible.

Related: Mixing plural and singular list items with a single verb, uncountable noun + and + uncountable noun, “There Is”/“There are” depends on plurality of the first list element or not? — herisson, Aug 24 '17 at 10:18
Since there's a dichotomy between the positive (lots of rice) and negative (natural disasters) aspects, perhaps: "Where I live right now there is plenty of rice, but also many earthquakes and typhoons." — TripeHound, Aug 24 '17 at 11:50
@TripeHound that's a good idea, and while written like that it makes my sentence look worse, that's because of the sentence itself. I might keep plenty in the second half as well for consistency; there is plenty of X, but plenty of Y and Z as well. — uhoh, Aug 24 '17 at 12:33
Where I live we certainly have enough rice, and typhoons, and earthquakes... In some cases more than enough. — Jim, Aug 24 '17 at 16:40
Juxtaposing rice with natural disasters is incongruous, so this only works in a quirky register. Is that intended, or can you provide a different example where unnaturalness due to quirkiness isn't a complicating factor? / A simple rewrite ( 'Where I live right now, we have plenty of rice, earthquakes and typhoons.') retains the wryness and colloquial flavour. — Edwin Ashworth, Aug 26 '17 at 10:25
@EdwinAshworth juxtaposition and incongruity are literary tools and not necessarily quirky. In fact, the quirky label is subjective, and I'm not sure how I could know ahead of time which incongruous juxtapositions you are going to deem to be quirky and which not. Maybe you could suggest some? — uhoh, Aug 26 '17 at 10:29

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 24 '17 at 15:41

4

The OP asks: “But here I am asking if there is a way that I can keep the three nouns as close together as possible”

One sentence.

Earthquakes and typhoons are as plentiful as rice where I live.

answered Aug 24 '17 at 15:41

Mari-Lou A

91,183

I've got to just accept this because it is exactly what I am looking for! You've solved my grammatical problem and also found a much better way to express what I wanted to at the same time, and so I've made the change in the original location. Thank you! – uhoh Aug 24 '17 at 15:55
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@uhoh that was unexpected. Thank you for vote of confidence. I see you posted over 7 hours ago, so you must have been feeling slightly frustrated. Well, you never know someone else might post a better answer. If they do, feel free to accept theirs. – Mari-Lou A Aug 24 '17 at 15:58
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@uhoh you could swap the order, "Rice is as plentiful as the earthquakes and typhoons where I live". I've only just read your post on SE Seasoned Advice. – Mari-Lou A Aug 24 '17 at 16:02
We often have a typhoon and an earthquake three times in a single day? This has to be in a marked (quirky) register. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 26 '17 at 10:21

Mixing countability; how to correctly say "there is plenty of rice, earthquakes and typhoons"?

1 Answers1