Do you say "cereal" or "cereals"?

Posted by TranquillityQuack@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 45 comments

Heard a friend say "I'm going to have a bowl or cereals" the other day, and we had a bit of bantery back and forth because he swears blind that people do and have always say cereals rather than just cereal (when talking about/describing one type of cereal).

I've never in my life heard anyone say cereals, unless they're talking about multiple types. We're both from London.

Anyone say cereals? I wonder if it may be different depending on regions etc? Or if he's just wrong lol

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ARobertNotABob@reddit

Cereal in a bowl to eat, cereals growing in the fields.

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uncle_monty@reddit

I wonder if your friend goes to the beach to walk on the sands.

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TranquillityQuack@reddit (OP)

🤣🤣

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Rocky-bar@reddit

Cereals! Always has been! the Cereal people here must be eating a single cornflake for breakfast.

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7ootles@reddit

If you're at a Chinese or Indian restaurant, do you ask for "rices"?

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Rocky-bar@reddit

No i don't... do you ask for baked bean?

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TranquillityQuack@reddit (OP)

This made me chuckle 🤣

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Precipiceofasneeze@reddit

It's not "a" cereal, it's a piece of cereal.

Rocky-bar@reddit

WEll lego is different, legos would be insane.

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Precipiceofasneeze@reddit

It's not different though. In the USA referring to LEGO bricks as "Legos" is incredibly common.

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Rocky-bar@reddit

Hopefully they say cereals too then!

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Precipiceofasneeze@reddit

So you can all be wrong together?

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farkinhell@reddit

You might want to fix that.

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fiddly_foodle_bird@reddit

Your friend was bored and fucking with you for entertainment.

Bit worrying you did not spot this.

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TranquillityQuack@reddit (OP)

He honestly wasn't. But thank you for your input 🤣

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HenshinDictionary@reddit

Cereal, because I'm a native English speaker and that's how English works.

Gravel, not gravel. Salt, not salts. LEGO, not Legos. Cereal, not cereals.

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Big-Parking9805@reddit

"You say aluminum, we say aluminium.You say erbs, we say herbs, because there's a fucking h in it." - one of the best Eddie Izzard gags.

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TranquillityQuack@reddit (OP)

I love this 🤣

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28374woolijay@reddit

We used to not pronounce the H, hence using “an” instead of “a” before words such as hospital, hotel and humble. The fact we do now pronounce the H makes people who insist on pronouncing “an” in that context seem rather silly.

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7ootles@reddit

Certain words are still correctly pronounced without the fricative too - you mentioned "hotel", another example would be "historian" (though not not "history").

The most jarring thing about the way USAians say "herb" isn't that they miss the fricative, it's that they replace it with a glottal stop.

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Realistic_Map_7128@reddit

Cereal

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WVA1999@reddit

Depends how many cereals you've gotten in your bowl.

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Mc_and_SP@reddit

As the legendary Rebecca Black says:

🎵 *Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal * 🎵

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7ootles@reddit

She's gotta wait a couple of days yet.

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Same_Adhesiveness_31@reddit

Guess it depends. Something like cheerios would technically be a bowl of cereals?

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GlitchingGecko@reddit

Unless you're using the dregs of multiple boxes in the same bowl... no, it's singular.

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BandicootObjective32@reddit

I've got the end of a box of weetos and some shreddies for breakfast today so I guess that's cereals!

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TSC-99@reddit

My fiancé says it plural. I try and correct him but he insists on it, unfortunately.

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PurrPaul@reddit

Cereal, like rice.

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Typical_Nebula3227@reddit

Cereal also Lego

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Kimbo-BS@reddit

What are your favourite cereals? (type of cereal, countable).

I want a big bowl of cereal (a single kind of cereal, non-countable).

It is similar to "bread" and "breads", where the uncommonness of "breads" can sound strange, I guess.

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wardyms@reddit

“I’ve just been destroying my cereals” - Alan Partridge damaging several boxes of different cereal during a bit of a mental breakdown.

Only time I’ve ever heard “cereals”

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