grammatical number - “These stuff” vs. “this stuff”
I wrote “I know all these stuff; I don’t have to go over them again” in my writing-exam paper and the teacher corrected it to read, “I know all this stuff; I don’t have to go over it again.”
The teacher is Irish so I don’t think he would make a mistake but I think even if the first one (these) was wrong, the second one (them) should have stayed the same. Am I right?
Answer
Stuff is singular, so it needs to be preceded by the singular demonstrative determiner this. For the same reason, it needs to be referred to by the singular pronoun it and not the plural pronoun them.
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