What type of nouns are 'cattle', 'staff' and 'jeans'?

Question

I was taught that there are four types of nouns:

• singular countable: journey, sheep, child

• plural countable: journeys, sheep, children

• singular uncountable: travel, water, fruit

• plural uncountable: groceries, customs, thanks

Also

• Some words are only used with countable nouns: one, two, three, many, number, few

• Some words are only used with uncountable nouns: much, little, good/great deal, quantity, amount

Am I right?

What about the word 'cattle'? You can say neither 'three cattle' nor 'much cattle'. (According to Practical English Usage) What type of noun is it?

If it is an uncountable noun why I can say 'many cattle' but not 'much cattle'? Isn't 'many' used only with countable nouns and 'much' only with uncountable nouns?

Also, you might consider 'staff' or 'jeans'. You can say for example 'four staff' but not 'a staff'. (According to Practical English Usage)

Answer 1

There are countable nouns (journey, sheep, child), which have singular forms (given) and plural forms (journeys, sheep, children).

And there are uncountable nouns (travel, water, fruit) which don't have plural forms. Although these words may have plural forms in other, perhaps related, senses. You can talk about "waters" but it means something different to the non-count "water".

There are some countable nouns that are usually or always used in the plural. (jeans, groceries). And there are some oddities (staff, cattle)

It is worth comparing "countable/uncountable" with the genders in other languages. In French, every noun is "masculine" or "feminine". Sometimes you can tell by the meaning of a word which gender it is in, sometimes not. The masculine/feminine system is very mature. Even so there are still some oddities (le/la diesel, le/la casse) "Countable/uncountable" is a gender system that you are seeing being born. There are still lots of oddities.

There are lots of words that can be both countable and non countable, with a subtle difference in meaning (a beer/some beer). There are countable plural words (like jeans) that refer to a countable-singular item, or (like groceries) that refer to a non-count item. There are words like "cattle" which began as a non-count word meaning "property" and then "live property" and then "cows" and so acquired a meaning that was plural, but it's grammar has not really caught up with its meaning. Similarly "staff" is a word that has undergone lots of changes in meaning (stick/pole -> walking stick -> ceremonial walking stick carried by an army officer -> army officer -> army officer who isn't in direct command of troops -> Other people with similar office jobs in hospitals or offices -> the group of people working at a particular office.) When words undergo such extreme changes in meaning, the grammar often doesn't keep up, and the word becomes an oddity.

So the categorisation of nouns into uncountable and countable is useful, but not complete or absolute, and you will have to deal with nouns that don't fit neatly into these categories.

Answer 2

cattle is countable, yes, and the meaning is plural.

AND: we say "head of cattle" (also used with sheep) so that gives us this kind of sentence:

I have 20 head of cattle on my farm. [notice the singular]

I have many head of cattle on my farm. OR
I have a lot of cattle on my ranch.
I have three cattle on my farm. [not my personal preference]

Also from Wikipedia:

Cattle can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum.[31] Thus one may refer to "three cattle" or "some cattle", but not "one cattle". "One head of cattle" is a valid though periphrastic way to refer to one animal of indeterminate or unknown age and sex; otherwise no universally used single-word singular form of cattle exists in modern English, other than the sex- and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer.

Please note: Personally, I would not use a number with cattle as explained above.

cattle

staff: We say: member of staff or staff members. How many staff members are there in your office? For a walking stick, the word is countable. The shepherds have staffs.

Jeans: He was wearing jeans. How many pairs [of jeans] does he own? Jeans is plurale tantum:

A plurale tantum (Latin for 'plural only'; pl. pluralia tantum) is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant for referring to a single object. In a less strict usage of the term, it can also refer to nouns whose singular form is rarely used.

'Putting on pants' is correct, 'putting on pant' sounds odd In English, pluralia tantum are often words that denote objects that occur or function as pairs or sets, such as spectacles, trousers, pants, scissors, clothes, or genitals. Other examples are for collections that, like alms and feces, cannot conceivably be singular. Other examples include suds, jeans, outskirts, odds, riches, surroundings, thanks, and heroics.

plurale tantum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#:~:text=%22One%20head%20of%20cattle%22%20is,%2C%20bull%2C%20steer%20and%20heifer.

Many is for countable nouns only. Much is for non-countable nouns. BUT beware of this: We don't say: I have much coffee (usually). We use: I have a lot of coffee [in the cupboard]. a lot of is preferred to much in many declarative situations.