NDA (II) 2016 General Ability Test · Question 42 of 150

Correct — A, stationery. 'Stationery' means writing materials taken together and is an uncountable noun, so it has no plural; 'some stationery' is the correct way to speak of an unspecified quantity of it.

• (b)stationary — 'Stationary' with an 'a' is an adjective meaning not moving, so the sentence would say the speaker went to buy something motionless.
• (c)stationaries — It commits both faults at once — the wrong word of the pair, and a plural ending on what is an adjective and cannot be pluralised.
• (d)NO IMPROVEMENT — 'Stationeries' is the planted error; it puts a plural ending on a noun that is never counted.

A pair of similar-sounding words, one of them an uncountable noun that takes no plural.

The item hides one trap inside another. A candidate who spots only the spelling pair may pick 'stationary' and end up with an adjective where a noun is needed; a candidate who spots only the plural may still choose the wrong member of the pair. Both tests have to be passed together. A useful hold is that stationEry, with an e, is what you buy for writing — pEncil, pEn, papEr — while stationAry, with an a, is what stAnds still.

• Furniture, luggage, information, advice, machinery and stationery are all uncountable in English and take no plural ending.
• To count uncountable items English uses a measure word — 'two items of stationery', 'a piece of advice'.
• Both words go back to Latin stationarius; the shop-keeper who stayed at a fixed station gave English the word for the goods he sold.

• Adding a plural ending to furniture, luggage, information, advice or stationery.
• Repairing the spelling but landing on the adjective of the pair.

Asked as a sentence-improvement item that tests a confusable spelling pair and an uncountable noun in the same underlined word.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which option best improves the underlined part — The office ordered new <u>furnitures</u> for the reception room.

  • (a)furniture
  • (b)furnitureis
  • (c)furnitured
  • (d)No improvement

  Answer(a) furniture — the noun is uncountable and takes no plural ending.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which option best improves the underlined part — The car remained <u>stationery</u> at the crossing for ten minutes.

  • (a)stationary
  • (b)stationaries
  • (c)stationeries
  • (d)No improvement

  Answer(a) stationary — the adjective meaning not moving is spelt with an 'a'.