Mango is my favourite fruit. Is this grammatically correct. I saw somewhere that mangoes or the mango should come. But couldn't understand the reason.
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There are a couple of ways to express the idea that a certain type of fruit is your favorite.
The mango is my favorite fruit.
Mangoes are my favorite fruit.
I would consider "mango" without article to be a fruit flavor, or the flesh of the fruit, not a type of fruit.
Mango is my favorite (fruit) flavor.
What flavor ice cream do you want, mango, peach, or strawberry?
The baby has recently started solid foods and loves mango.
TimR
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2It seems to me that the answer to a question of this kind depends as much on the item concerned and popular usage as on any rule. Few people would query: Cabbage is my favourite vegetable or Lettuce is my favourite salad ingredient. That's not to disagree with the answer. Possibly a matter of taste! – Ronald Sole Dec 06 '18 at 22:47
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Popular usage is the rule. – TimR Dec 06 '18 at 23:21
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We don't say Apple is my favorite fruit to refer to the type of fruit... unless you're a baby eating mush, of course. – TimR Dec 06 '18 at 23:23
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1@Tᴚoɯɐuo I suspect - and this is a tough question - the singular becomes reasonable if the subject can be treated as a mass noun. Apples and strawberries can not be. Cabbage, caviar, and beer should be. Mango seems optional to. – Ross Murray Dec 07 '18 at 00:12
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Related question about grapes. – J.R. Dec 07 '18 at 00:42
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Why mango without an article can't be used for a type of fruit. – Manish Kumar Balayan Dec 07 '18 at 09:20
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@Ross Murray: I agree in a sense. My "baby eating mush" comment above is meant to reflect that idea of mass noun. However, when referring to fruit, when we say that something is your favorite fruit, we're looking for a something that is not a mass noun but a type. We may use mango in a recipe, but then we're using the flesh of the fruit, not the fruit per se. – TimR Dec 07 '18 at 09:58
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I don't have any problem with watermelon is my favorite fruit, but I would never say *grape is my favorite fruit. And mango is my favorite fruit falls somewhere in between these extremes. – Peter Shor Dec 07 '18 at 12:26
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@Tᴚoɯɐuo Thank you. It seems that we agree 'mass noun' belongs somewhere in the correct answer to this question. I could see that much, but not enough to provide an answer. That was my reason for posting a comment. Peter Shor has since posted an answer including that - which I am prepared to trust - so I'll leave this question at this point. – Ross Murray Dec 07 '18 at 18:33
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@Ross Murray: If it helps you to hang your thoughts on a peg with the label "mass noun", go for it. – TimR Dec 07 '18 at 22:31
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@Tᴚoɯɐuo I rely on the definition in CMoS of 'mass noun'. 5.8 says, "A mass noun ... is one that denotes something uncountable, either because it is abstract ... or because it refers to an indeterminate aggregation of people or things". So, I consider collective nouns a subset of mass nouns. Can we agree that a lack of uniform agreement about terminology is the bane of their lives for many amateur linguists. ;) – Ross Murray Dec 08 '18 at 06:43
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@Ross Murray: I wasn't quibbling with the terminology but with the terminology :) I don't think the label mass noun "belongs somewhere in the correct answer" since labeling things is not necessarily the best way to help learners. In my answer I said that mango without the article refers to the fruit's flavor or to its flesh because I believe concreteness is a more practical approach than labeling things; applying a label doesn't really explain usage. When would we use the "mass noun" mango? When referring to the flavor or to the flesh of the fruit. – TimR Dec 08 '18 at 11:38
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I believe that
Pineapple is my favorite fruit
is a grammatical English sentence because pineapple, like many foods, can be a mass noun. For example, a waiter might ask
Would you like pineapple or cake for dessert?
while he certainly wouldn't ask
*Would you like pineapples or cake for dessert?
On the other hand, native English speakers would never say
*Grape is my favorite fruit,
because grape isn't used as a mass noun. I think the difference here is that pineapples are big enough that you don't eat an entire pineapple in a serving, while grapes are not. Mangoes are somewhere in between. I personally think the OP's sentence is acceptable, but I don't believe all English speakers would agree with me.
Changing the sentence slightly:
*Mango is my favorite tree,
makes it clearly ungrammatical, because mango cannot be a mass noun when you are talking about mango trees. You would need to say one of:
The mango is my favorite tree,
Mangoes are my favorite trees.
NOTE: I changed "watermelon" to "pineapple" above because of an argument in the comments. Apparently not everybody considers melons to be fruits, and whether I use "watermelon" or "pineapple" is completely immaterial to my answer.
Peter Shor
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Botanical accuracy aside, it's not really idiomatic to call a watermelon a fruit, since native speakers as a whole don't really apply the word "fruit" to a melon. The phrase fruits and melons is a collocation. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22fruits%20and%20melons%22&tbm=bks&lr=lang_en – TimR Dec 08 '18 at 11:45
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@Tᴚoɯɐuo: I am a native English speaker, and I consider watermelon a fruit. This obviously varies regionally. – Peter Shor Dec 08 '18 at 11:51
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That article is about how to classify watermelon. You're making my point for me. It's only when the subject is classification that the term "fruit" is used of melons. – TimR Dec 08 '18 at 11:56
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@Tᴚoɯɐuo: The article implies that it's perfectly idiomatic for *some* native speakers to call watermelon a fruit. Others disagree. – Peter Shor Dec 08 '18 at 11:59
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I don't see it there but in any case a single author's statement that it's idiomatic to call a watermelon a fruit is not real evidence thereof; I've given you a link to dozens and dozens of attestations of "fruits and melons" showing that it's common to call melons "melons". – TimR Dec 08 '18 at 12:03
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@Tᴚoɯɐuo: Wikipedia considers that melons are fruits. It doesn't even class them as contested, like tomatoes, eggplants, and avocados. The fact that there are dozens and dozens of attestations of "fruits and melons" just means that *some* native speakers don't consider melons fruits. – Peter Shor Dec 08 '18 at 12:05
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You're missing the point. In my very first comment above, I wrote "Botanical accuracy aside...". I'm talking about what native speakers say. If you were to say I love this fruit while holding a watermelon, many native speakers would wonder if you were a non-native speaker. – TimR Dec 08 '18 at 12:05
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@Tᴚoɯɐuo: If the majority of native speakers did not classify watermelons as fruits, why hasn't anybody corrected that Wikipedia page? Wikipedia also calls honeydew and canteloupe "fruits". – Peter Shor Dec 08 '18 at 12:11
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Because the Wikipedia page is about botanical classification not about linguistic usage. Can't you get that distinction into your melon? – TimR Dec 08 '18 at 12:32
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@Tᴚoɯɐuo: My Wikipedia page says *specifically* "Fruits on this list are defined as the word is used in everyday speech. It does not include vegetables, whatever their origin." It puts the botanical fruits that everybody calls vegetables, like tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, and pumpkins, in a separate category. Melons are not in that category. Can't you understand that English has different dialects, that we don't all speak the same way, and that we don't all classify the same things as fruits? – Peter Shor Dec 08 '18 at 13:19
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An assertion on a Wikipedia page is NOT linguistic evidence of general usage. You've presented nothing that constitutes real evidence of your position that it is idiomatic in a major North American or British English dialect to refer to melons as fruits in everyday contexts that do not involve botanical classification. – TimR Dec 08 '18 at 13:46
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The U.S.-based Produce Marketing Association also classifies melons as fruits, and cucumbers and tomatoes as vegetables, but you probably won't believe they know what they're talking about, either. – Peter Shor Dec 08 '18 at 13:55
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