Mistakes in English speaking with – One of, Few of, Some of & All of


source: Learn English with Let's Talk     2017年4月16日
Mistakes in English speaking with – One of, Few of, Some of, None of & All of – Improve your spoken English http://www.learnex.in/mistakes-in-eng...

Let’s look at the first phrase “one of” in a sentence.
Example: One of my books is missing.

Now a lot of people do not add the “s” or the plural form of books. They don’t do so because they think that you can’t have “is” followed by the plural form of a noun. But actually you have to add an “s” to the noun when you are using “one of” and follow that noun by “is”. This is because the word “one” is the subject in this sentence. So, you have to use “is” after the noun.

Example: A few of my books are missing. A few refers to 2 or more books. So you will use are and of course the plural form of the noun

This is the same rule you apply when using some of, most of, none of and all of.

Now this rule for these phrases only applies when we have countable nouns or nouns that you can quantify into individual units.

Uncountable nouns: advice, news, things like butter, milk, water, rice.we can’t count these things. These nouns are always singular in their use of spoken English.

Eg: Some of his advice is good. This same rule applies for most of, all of and none of. Which means you can replace some of with most of, all of and none of

However, you can’t use one of and few of when using an uncountable noun.
So, you can’t say -one of his advice is good or a few of his advice is good. Both are incorrect.