[Vocabulary] way of doing vs way to do

yuriya said:

Is there any difference between these two expressions?

1. I wish I had some way of helping them.
2. I wish I had some way[STRIKE]s[/STRIKE] to help them.

Thanks in advance!

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yuriya said:

Any idea why the former way (some way of helping) is treated as uncount and the latter way (some ways to help) as count?

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Raymott said:

'Some way' is far more common for both.

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Raymott said:

It's not necessarily. You might have missed that I struck out the 's' on your #2.
'Some way' is far more common for both. (Yes, you might see "some ways").

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2006 said:

Because if you don't even have one way (of helping)(to help), you are not going to say "ways". You would be happy to have just one way.

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yuriya said:

See what you mean. Thanks guys. But then to me, way sounds countable Yes, it's countable. as in there's not just one way to get there. So I found it a little odd to see some way rather than some ways. "countable" doesn't mean it has to be more than "one".
"one" is a number, just like 47 or 112 million.

But then I realized that I was missing the point. Some can be used in the sense of "a certain" yes, meaning 'one' (as in some guy I know) or in the sense of "nice" (as in some view you have here!) Yes, but that "some" has nothing to do with counting.
other than in the sense of "a few" or many (as in some apples). Tell me I'm back on the right track!:-D

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