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Thanks to all who responded to my survey the other day. With 41 responses, I think I can start drawing some conclusions.

I think the main thing demonstrated by the survey is that I need practice in designing surveys. In retrospect, I should've made it a lot simpler, and probably should've stated upfront what I was looking for, but I was afraid that would influence the results.

What I was interested in was finding out people's linguistic intuition about whether the word "email" is a mass noun or a count noun. (Are those the right terms? I'm not sure.) In particular, most people use "email" to refer to an unspecified number of messages collectively ("I got some email the other day"), but does it sound weird to specify a particular number of "emails"? And does it sound weird to refer to a single "email"?

So the three main phrases of interest are, basically:

• I received some email.
• I received an email.
• I received three emails.

I mostly threw in the other cases out of curiosity, 'cause I thought small variations might produce interesting results.

I knew going into this that different people had different answers to the question, so I was interested in seeing how strong the differences were (whether there was a clear majority opinion on either side). I was also interested in seeing whether the differences correlated with experience with email.

My personal response is that, for me, email is a mass noun ("I received some email" sounds fine to me, albeit mildly stilted) that can be pressed into service as a count noun without hurting too much, especially in an informal context. And "an email" sounds more natural to me than "three emails." "Three emails" sounds to me like something more likely to be said by someone with relatively little computer experience.

But the person who asked me this question in the first place (I'm not sure if she wants to be identified, so I'll simply refer to her as Ms. Terious, because I've reached the silly stage of the evening) finds the count-noun use very natural, and she has lots of email experience, so it was clear that my initial hypothesis was somewhere between mildly inaccurate and outright wrong. The survey was an attempt to get more data, but I think I obscured what I was looking for by the specifics of my phrasing.

Part of what interests me here is that with papermail, there's an easily available count noun ("letter"), so the mass noun isn't used as a count noun (most people wouldn't say "I got three mails today," at least not in reference to papermail). But letter isn't used as often to refer to email, so it's hard to know what term to use to refer to a specific number of messages.

The results of the survey seem to suggest that "an email" (count noun, singular) sounds natural to most people in any context, and that "I got/received email" (mass noun) sounds natural to most people as well. Only a little over half the respondents thought "three emails" (count noun, plural) sounded okay in a formal context, but over three-fourths of the respondents thought "three emails" sounded okay in an informal context.

Also, almost all respondents have been using email for at least 5 years, and the vast majority started using it before they were 20. So there's little if any data here about people who aren't comfortable with email.

But the data I do have would seem to suggest that email can be used by most people either as a mass noun or a count noun, with the plural count noun not as popular as the singular but by no means unknown.

I was surprised to see "three email messages" and "three pieces of email" down at the bottom of the list on the informal side, and to see "three pieces of email" near the bottom of the list but "three email messages" at the top on the formal side. I threw both of those in expecting that nobody would find them objectionable in any context; I'm guessing that they sound a little stilted to many of you.

I also got a couple of emails with further comments. One noted that "I have three email messages in my inbox" sounded like something a particular person with limited computer background might say. In retrospect, I can see that too—I would say "email messages" in some formal contexts to avoid saying "emails," but without the context it does seem a little awkwardly phrased.

Another respondent-by-email noted that email without an sounds plural. If you only received one email message that day, you might not say "I got email today." (Though I would say "I got email from Joe today" even if Joe sent me only one message.)

And a third email that I received noted that one might more likely say "I have three messages in my inbox" or "I have three messages in my email inbox" than "I have three email messages in my inbox."

All very interesting. Thanks for all the email (and all the emails), and for filling out the survey.

I was gonna say something else here, but after drifting off at the keyboard, I've forgotten what it was. Which indicates it's time I headed bedward. May all your emails be of an appropriate number.