universal grinder

English
Examples

The term basket is usually countable; however, you could say "the puppy chewed the basket to bits, and now there's basket all over the house."

Etymology

Compound of universal +‎ grinder; first used in print in 1975 by Francis Jeffry Pelletier (see quote below) after the suggestion of philosopher David Lewis.

Noun

universal grinder (plural universal grinders)

  1. (linguistics) A mechanism whereby countable nouns are made uncountable.
    • 1979, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, “Non-singular reference”, in Mass Terms: Some Philosophical Problems, Reidel, →ISBN, pages 5–6:
      Consider a machine, the "universal grinder". [...] The reader has doubtless guessed by now the purpose of our universal grinder: Take an object corresponding to any (apparent) count noun he wishes (e.g. 'man'), put the object in one end of the grinder and ask what is on the floor (answer: 'There is man all over the floor')

See also
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