Work on regional variation in mass/count nouns? (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Doug Harris]

I may be way off on this, but is it possible that 'some beers'
(Canadian) vs 'a beer' in some parts of the US reflects, in the
latter case, a more puritanical attitude suggesting the it would
never _occur_ to one to want more than 'a' beer, while in the
case of Canadians, a 'more British' attitude that there's no
such concept as having 'just one'.
(Apropos the latter point, many pub-loving Brits seem to have
gone to the same math class as the Magliozzi brothers (Click and
Clack) of Car Talk fame, who're always promising X "in the third
half of our show". The Brits, ever more after the first one, are
"having the other half".
(the other) Doug
============

>  There appear to be some other regional
> differences -- like 'let's go have a beer' vs. 'let's go have
> some beers' -- where the latter is the norm here (and in the
> East?), but only the former was familiar to me growing up in
> the South.

I seem to remember Doug and Bob MacKenzie (from Second City TV) (two
very
stereotypical Canadians) talking about having "beers" -- maybe even in
their top-40 Christmas novelty song???

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org