Question

In regards to countable nouns, I can not quite understand why the following sentence using a uncountable noun becomes pluralized. "The hull of a kayak is made of animal skins." Can someone please explain?

Answer 1

Some words can be both countable and uncountable. It depends what they refer to.

You can say : Animal skin was used a lot in ancient times.
Here, it refers to the material itself and is uncountable.

If you say : The fur trader had many animal skins to sell.
It means each skin could be sold separately, and that they could be counted one by one.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

The subject of the sentence is "hull" and it determines whether the verb is singular or plural.