A carton of milk, a loaf of bread
(Some containers and partitives)

    Answers to the exercise

    1. a bar of soap, chocolate
    2. a pair of sunglasses, jeans
    3. a carton of wine, milk, orange juice
    4. a box of tissues, matches, chocolates
    5. a bottle of wine, orange juice, lemonade, milk, beer, ketchup
    6. a tube of toothpaste, ointment
    7. a jar of jam, peanut butter, honey, coffee
    8. a can of beer, orange juice, lemonade, peaches, hair spray, condensed milk
    9. a bunch of bananas, grapes
    10. a roll of film
    11. a loaf of bread
    12. a packet of cigarettes, tissues, crisps (potato chips)
    13. a bag of crisps (potato chips)
    14. a tub of margarine, ice-cream

    Some comments

    1. Did you notice that we say a bar of chocolate but a box of chocolates? A bar of chocolate is a large rectangular-shaped piece of chocolate divided into pieces, which we break off (e.g Kit-Kat, Crunky). A box of chocolates (notice the plural 's') contains a lot of small individually wrapped pieces of chocolate (e.g. Hershey's "Kisses").

    2. In British English, it's quite common to say packet of cigarettes; in American English it is more usual to say pack of cigarettes. The word, packet exists in American English but it usually means a very small bag or envelope like the small bags of sugar or ketchup you find in fast food stores.

    3. Crisps is British English; potato chips is American English.

    We hope you found this lesson useful. There are plenty of other lessons available on this web-site. Please click here if you want to try some of them.

    © Robert E. Jones, 2004