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We can say,

"I had a delicious breakfast"

because of the adjective, as opposed to

"I had breakfast",

where we don't use an indefinite article. As in this former case we have ONE specific breakfast. Why can't we treat the word "weather" the same way?

"It was such a great weather". Isn't it also ONE instance out of many?

Leroy
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  • I suppose because breakfast is a single meal while weather goes on continuously! – Kate Bunting Nov 27 '23 at 10:54
  • It’s not one instance out of many. – Xanne Nov 27 '23 at 10:56
  • @KateBunting Good/bad/any sort of weather does not go on continuously, though. It changes. – Leroy Nov 27 '23 at 11:07
  • @Xanne Today we've had good weather, yesterday it was bad, tomorrow it might be horrible. So, to me they sound like instances. Maybe I see it differently (in the wrong way, I mean). – Leroy Nov 27 '23 at 11:09
  • Today we've had good weather (the conditions during the day). Today I had a good breakfast (a single meal). – Kate Bunting Nov 27 '23 at 12:28
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    Does this answer your question? What weather! What a pity! - phrases with and without article - why? Where the top-rated answer says *Weather is almost always uncountable, and so cannot be preceded by the indefinite article.* – FumbleFingers Nov 27 '23 at 12:32
  • @FF 'He took a great pride in his appearance' is noncount (try inserting 2, a dozen, 1000 before prides). But 'a weather' is as you say extremely rare. Noncount usages resist the indefinite article. // Arguably, 'I had breakfast' isn't a count usage; 'I took breakfast' argues more for a delexical verb usage here, where countness isn't really applicable. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 27 '23 at 14:34
  • @FumbleFingers I don't think it does, as it doesn't reflect on the usage of an indefinite article with breakfast/lunch/dinner. I'm more interested in the fact that an adjective changes these three words into count nouns, or does it? KateBunting mentioned "Today we've had good weather (the conditions during the day). Today I had a good breakfast (a single meal)." Couldn't we treat "weather" the same way and say "Today we've a had good weather" (a single day)? – Leroy Nov 27 '23 at 15:21
  • Well, I think it's unrealistic to think that a small number of named syntactic categories can unambiguously cover all "acceptable syntactic affordances". Which are significantly different for *weather* and *breakfast*, regardless of how those words relate to terms like "uncoutable", "mass noun", etc. Have a look at this usage chart... – FumbleFingers Nov 27 '23 at 16:05
  • ...showing that #1 serves good breakfast, #2 serves a* good breakfast, and #3 serves good breakfasts* are all perfectly common. But only have good weather is acceptable - have a* good weather* and have good weathers** are not and never have been acceptable anywhere, so far as I know. – FumbleFingers Nov 27 '23 at 16:05

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