Description Of Victorian Costumes?

How do I know if what I've read is a description, description, or descriptions?

• I'm having trouble distinguishing between the uses of description, a description, and descriptions. For example, on the Quora About page ( ), there is text describing about Quora. Is it a description or descriptions or description? So which is correct or appropriate? there is description about Quora in that page. there is a description about Quora in that page. there are descriptions about Quora in that page.

• Answer:

  Generally, what you want to say is "a description." A description is a single occasion of describing, regardless of the number of specific details or features mentioned. Think of a description as a collection of distinguishing features. As for "descriptions," you should probably limit that to different acts of describing, that is, either on separate occasions or by separate people. For instance, you would say "descriptions" in the following sentence: "The bystanders' descriptions of the perpetrator did not agree." Each bystander gave their own description, of which no two were the same, so it makes sense that we'd distinguish them by using the plural form, but if a single person said it and there was no disagreement or contradiction, it'd just be one description. Don't use singular "description" without an article except in newspaper headlines, drop-down menus, and similarly abbreviated writing styles where all articles are left out. I can see why this word would be difficult. Semantically, it's like a collective noun, but grammatically, it's a count noun, which is confusing. Some nouns in English relating to information and mental states are count nouns, some are collective nouns, and, unlike nouns for tangible things, which can be easily guessed, these must simply be memorized.