I have been learning Classical Greek for a while now, however, I am quite pedantic about translating to/from Greek expressions and words that are uncountable or ambiguous in number in English: where I am usually quite dissatisfied with the resulting translation. I cannot point to super specific examples, but for instance I will list a few ones I encounter. Since, the words have plural endings in Greek I always use singular number - I would be grateful if someone who has more experience in Greek texts could provide me with a rule or two about these situations given that English colloquial style is probably not in line with what used to be written, and where the exceptions lie.
water/waters hair food bread sand grass etc.
On a related note, when using the dative in an ‘ablative style’ some words in English sound incorrect/correct with the definite article (with weapons, from hunger etc.): do they require a Greek def. article or not?
Thank you in advance!
Art
The dictionary (LSJ) will tell you a lot about how each of those words were used by the Greeks, whether in plural or singular. Ex. ὕδωρ is often plural…but only once in Homer, and hot springs are τὰ ὕδατα. θρίξ is plural in Homer, but often singular in later writers.
So in translation to Greek, it would depend on the word and the time period and poetry vs. prose. On translation from Greek, the mental image may be singular or collective or actually plural, and I expect that you’ll want to translate the image, not the word.
I don’t know anything about the ablative use in particular, but definite article use differs between English and Greek. The grammars discuss this. Goodwin is criminally underused these days, and has good sections on the article beginning 941. Sidgwick and others discuss the differences between English and Greek. For the ablative dative in particular though, you may have to keep you eye out for examples of its use in your reading, and copy those.