"Do you do Taco Hell?" / "bus" as non-count n.

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>   "Bus" as a non-count n.?  This is strange to me.  And yet my neighbor
> in grad school one year (1977-78)  used to reminisce about "driving
> truck" in Ohio, and in Tennessee I was once asked, "Do you ever ride bike
> ?" ....

Cf.:

Do you drive truck? = Are you a truck driver?

Do you ride bike/bus? = Are you a bike/bus rider?

Do you play piano? = Are you a piano player? [conventional]

Do you tend bar? = Are you a bartender? [conventional]

Do you lick boot? = Are you a boot-licker? [multiple Web instances of this
"lick boot"] [several obscene parallels also come to mind]

etc.

In each case, in either column, there is apparent lack of 'countability'.

-- Doug Wilson


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