Can an uncountable noun be an apposition of a countable noun?

Question

For example,

A castle, sand, is desturcted.

It means a sand castle (a castle made of sand) is destructed.

Side note to your question: the normal word is "destroyed", not "destructed". I hesitate to say "destructed" isn't a word, but it's certainly not in every day use. (I'm afraid I don't understand your actual question, but maybe someone else does.) — IMSoP, Sep 11 '21 at 22:29

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 11 '21 at 22:37

Yes, in principle, but not the examples you give.

You could say:

There was water, a puddle, on the floor.

It's a bit of an artificial example. But it is correct. Your example doesn't work. With apposition the sentence should "work" if you only use one of the nouns. So if I say "He lived in Paris, the capital of France" and I remove either "Paris" or "the capital of France" the meaning is the same.

But "the castle was destroyed" and "the sand was destroyed" have very different meanings. If you destroy the castle, the sand is still sand. So the apposition doesn't work.

(and was destroyed, not is destructed)

Can an uncountable noun be an apposition of a countable noun?

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