‘Industry’ and ‘Industries’

Posted by Pak Guru on February 5th, 2018 | 0 comments | countable uncountable, IELTS, industri, speaking, vocabulary, writing

Urbanisation supports economic development. Firstly, it is a supporting factor to increase industries.

OK so industry is one of those annoying words that can be countable and can be uncountable, depending on the context. If you’re being general then you need the uncountable form.

Using increase can result in quite different meanings:

• As a developing country, Country X is increasing its industries.
  (= adding more kinds of industry)
• As a developing country, Country X is increasing its industry.
  (= expanding the industrial capacity that it already has)

Here’s a short text with examples of both countable and uncountable forms of industry. Click on highlighted words for explanations.

Note that in its uncountable form, industry is strongly associated with manufacturing, and with polluting factories. Even Google agrees!