[Grammar] some/any ice cream

[anhnha]

1. I want some ice cream.
2. We don't have any ice cream.

I believe that "ice cream" is uncountable noun in #1 and can be either in #2.
Do you agree?

 

[anhnha]

1. We don't have any book.
2. We don't have any books.

In these cases, "book" is a countable noun. "ice cream" can also function as a countable noun. So, should these sentences below are also correct with ice cream functioning as countable noun?

3. We don't have any ice cream.
4. We don't have any ice creams.

 

[anhnha]

This is a sentence in my dictionary. Is it natural?

Have you any book(s)?

 

[Rover_KE]

Please name the dictionary.

'Have you any book?' is unnatural. 'Have you any books?' is fine.

 

[anhnha]

It is English - Vietnamese dictionary.

 

[Matthew Wai]

We don't have any book.

This is not natural in most contexts.

I think it would be better if 'any' was replaced with 'a'.

It is English - Vietnamese dictionary.

Was it written by a native English speaker or a Vietnamese?

 

[Eckaslike]

It is English - Vietnamese dictionary.

It may be in a Vietnamese dictionary but it could be a printing error.

For as long as I have been able to speak or read I have never seen or heard anyone use "Have you any book?". And for once I'm pretty certain AmE won't use it either.

To me, as a first language speaker, it sounds completely unnatural, and completely wrong. (49 year old British English speaker).

 

[anhnha]

Was it written by a native English speaker or a Vietnamese?

By a Vietnamese team.

 

[Matthew Wai]

I have never seen or heard anyone use "Have you any book?".

How about 'Do you have a book?'
Not a teacher.

By a Vietnamese team.

There are many free online dictionaries written by native speakers.
http://www.onelook.com/

 

[Barb_D]

I don't know about British English but "ice creams" isn't used.

I had some ice cream.
I had a whole carton of ice cream.
I had an ice cream cone.
We had ice cream cones.
We have ice cream sandwiches in the freezer.

I may say "I had an ice cream at the diner" or "we all had an ice cream" (unlikely compared to "some") but not "ice creams."

 

[emsr2d2]

I agree almost entirely with Barb. However, there is one circumstance in which I might use "ice creams". For example, a Cornetto is a cone filled with ice cream but it is an individual product and you can buy it in singles. There are, of course, other brands of a similar nature. In my retail job, I might ask a colleague "How many ice creams have we got in the freezer at the moment?" I would actually need her to count each individual item so that we can do a stocktake. This is a very specific usage.
I can only think of one other way of using it. If, on a menu, "ice cream" was listed under desserts and a friend and I both decided we wanted one, I might say to the waiter "We'll have two ice creams please".

 

[Eckaslike]

Yes. I agree with Emsr2d2. That appears to be he only difference.

We might say, "We all went to the beach and had ice creams". This might mean we all had the same type of ice cream, typically what used to be known as a "99" which was a cone with ice cream and a Flake (crumbly chocolate stick) stuck into it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Flake

Or it could mean we all had different types of cones, or ice cream lollies encased in fruit ice [Raspberry Splits come to mind]. http://travelko.livejournal.com/11382.html

Although you would just as frequently hear "We all went to the beach and had an ice cream".

 

[Matthew Wai]

'any ..determiner
2 used with singular countable nouns to refer to one of a number of things or people, when it does not matter which one'── quoted from http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/any_1?q=any
I think the above definition can explain why the following sentence is unnatural, but I am not a teacher.

1. We don't have any book.

In my humble opinion, the speaker actually does not have a number of books, so s/he cannot possibly refer to one of them and thus 'any' should not be used.

 

[emsr2d2]

Yes. I agree with Emsr2d2. That appears to be he only difference.

We might say, "We all went to the beach and had ice creams". This might mean we all had the same type of ice cream, typically what used to be known as a "99" which was a cone with ice cream and a Flake (crumbly chocolate stick) stuck into it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Flake

Or it could mean we all had different types of cones, or ice cream lollies encased in fruit ice [Raspberry Splits come to mind]. http://travelko.livejournal.com/11382.html

Although you would just as frequently hear "We all went to the beach and had an ice cream".

Interestingly (to the OP, at least, I hope), I would probably say "We all went to the beach and had ice cream".