From the review of a theatrical production:
- One major character death down, a shocking amount left to go.
No. Sorry. Deaths are things, and things have numbers, not amounts.
Grammar.com can tell you all about this:
- “Number is used with nouns that can be individually counted, like stars.
- Amount is used for nouns that cannot be individually counted, like starlight.”
The most important use of this rule is, of course, in a bar.
We will have a number of martinis, because they can be individually counted.
We’ll have a certain amount of gin, because it cannot be individually counted.
Although it is very much like starlight.
If you don’t lose count.
English Is A Complicated Language 