"Advice" vs. "an advice"

I have often heard that advice is uncountable and shouldn't be prefixed with an article. So I often force myself to say "a piece of advice". But I've seen it used with an article on a number of occasions. For example: BBC - Health: Domestic violence support contacts. (See archive.org for a copy of the original article.)

In some cases it's even pluralized as advices. For example:

Our latest advices from Santo Domingo state that the Spanish troops have almost entirely abandoned the island.

New York Times

Any idea?

Solution 1:

Note that your BBC link does use advice as an uncountable:

The websites and helplines below can offer help and advice on how to stay safe and how to get access to emergency refuge accommodation. They can also offer advice if you are worried about the safety of someone close to you.

Not "an advice" but "advice". Note that help is also uncountable here.

The page does mention:

... an advice line ...

Here it is the line which is countable, not the advice.

Your second source does use advice as if it were countable:

Our latest advices from Santo Domingo state that the Spanish troops have almost entirely abandoned the island.

... but note that it is from a correspondent in a Spanish colony, and the text dates from 1865. It is not considered normal to use advice as a countable in this way nowadays.

If you are having trouble with uncountable words, it's often helpful to substitute an uncountable word you're more comfortable with, to see how it fits:

"The websites and helplines below can offer sugar and water ..."

It no longer makes semantic sense, but you can see how the grammar still works.

Solution 2:

The OED records advice as a count noun, but comments that it is ‘Now chiefly Caribbean and South Asian’, although there are citatations from a variety of sources from the fifteenth century onwards.