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Is there any food, other than toast (i.e. slices of bread browned by fire, electric heat, etc.) that, even when it is in domestic-sized, countable amounts is nevertheless treated as an uncountable, mass noun.

This question arises from the discussion here Why is “toast” uncountable?

jimm101
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Dan
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  • What does 'easily countable' mean? Would 'beef', 'pork' etc be an answer (you can easily count animals or slices on a plate). Would 'rice' be an example (you can easily count a few grains). And on the other hand, toasted breadcrumbs are not too easy to count. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 13:04
  • How about bread? Or peanut butter? Or any of hundreds of other things? – Robusto Nov 13 '15 at 13:11
  • @Robusto - the point is that toast ONLY exists in a countable form. There is no 'mass' incarnation of 'toast' (bread is not toast!). – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 13:14
  • @EdwinAshworth - 'Countable' means that the item that you eat is ordered/made/consumed in incremental units. Rice, many kinds of pasta, peas, breadcrumbs etc... are mass nouns because they are ordered/made/consumed in 'servings/portions' (i.e. people usually do not count how many peas/rice grains etc they are given. Unlike toast, which ONLY exists as pieces/slices/bits of, beef and pork are mass nouns which can be made into countable slices. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 13:17
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    You obviously don't know, or are choosing to ignore, the different usages. Wikipedia discusses the reality/grammatical treatment conflict that does occur in some cases. '[With] mass nouns such as "water" or "furniture", only singular verb forms are used: the constituent matter is 'grammatically nondiscrete' (although it may [water] or may not [furniture] be etically nondiscrete). 'Pea', 'egg' etc have both count (one pea, six peas) and mass (Less egg in the cake next time, please) usages. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 13:25
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    @Dan: I suppose if toast "ONLY exists in countable form" I wouldn't be able to order some toast? But wait, I can! – Robusto Nov 13 '15 at 13:36
  • @Robusto - The physical object - a piece of toast - is clearly and unambiguously countable. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 13:39
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    Which is why we use a counter for that. Like we use a counter for bread: "slice of bread." – Robusto Nov 13 '15 at 13:42
  • But @Robusto the slice of bread comes from a mass noun - bread. The slice of toast doesn't come from anything. It is simply an anomaly - a countable object treated, curiously, as uncountable. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 13:44
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    How unusual is "toast"? Apparently it's about 10% of the questions of late. – Hot Licks Nov 13 '15 at 14:09
  • @EdwinAshworth - I'm not sure if you have understood the OP. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 14:09
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    A convert! Welcome to my world. Together we shall start ordering two butter and marmite toasts in British cafés across the land. Anyway, I thought Americans did order two or three toasts at diners, according to @Hot licks they do. – Mari-Lou A Nov 13 '15 at 14:10
  • Although the question title needs to be a little more descriptive – Mari-Lou A Nov 13 '15 at 14:13
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    @Mari-LouA I have never heard anyone say "toasts" (of course I've met everyone in America) – michael_timofeev Nov 13 '15 at 14:13
  • @Robusto -- Well, we don't use the counter directly. The toaster is on the counter, and the plate holding the lobster is on the counter, but it's poor form to put the lobster directly on the counter. – Hot Licks Nov 13 '15 at 14:14
  • @Mari-LouA - a fascinating question you raised and one that seems curiously difficult to explain! – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 14:14
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    I propose a toast...to uncountables – michael_timofeev Nov 13 '15 at 14:16
  • @Hot Licks That reminds me. It's been too long since I watched a Marx Brothers film. Movie. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 14:32
  • @Dan I'm not sure you have expressed yourself clearly in the OP. 'A slice of beef' is to 'beef' as 'a piece of toast' is to 'toast'. Both portions etically discrete, both using what are 'usually-to-very-largely mass' nouns. The butter I come across usually appears on the table as one or two pats, also. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 14:36
  • @EdwinAshworth - I don't understand 'etically' and cannot find it in the OED ... – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 14:42
  • But, as regards the first part of your comment. The point of the OP is that there is no physical (mass noun) 'toast' for 'a piece of toast' to come from'. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 14:43
  • Try looking it up here; 'massness'; 'countification' have already been covered. You're essentially asking for a list here, which is off-topic. The previous question sought to probe more deeply into 'massness vs countness' in real life vs English usage. // wrt your last comment: that was explained in an answer at the previous thread; 'toast' existed only in a sort of 'pottage'. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 14:44
  • Or to put it more simply, I know what a slice of beef looks like and it is different to (a chunk of/mass noun) beef. I cannot visualise 'toast' except in slices/pieces/bits of. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 14:45
  • Other [usually] 'non-count' nouns are similar. Clothing, furniture, cutlery ... Etically discrete (you can count items and the corresponding words in Klingon etc might be grammatically count) but grammatically non-count. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 14:50
  • I'll correct that. In the common imagination, 'toast' existed only in a sort of 'pottage'. The kitchen staff doubtless knew better. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 14:52
  • As I understand, OP is asking for a name of a food that comes from an ingredient having an uncountable mass noun-name, which is then separated and processed. During processing it changes its name. But it cannot be physically recombined into a mass, though its name inherits mass noun-quality of the original ingredient. Now the question is: if you buy a bread for toasting (consisting of 10 slices), toast them, and put back into the same package - what the result would be called? If you called it "toast" than it means, that toast has a physical mass form. If "10 slices of toasted bread" - not. – macraf Nov 13 '15 at 14:52
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    So if 10 slices of toasted bread packed together cannot be called "toast", then this is a valid question. – macraf Nov 13 '15 at 14:58
  • @EdwinAshworth - Thanks for the link to your answer http://english.stackexchange.com/q/202785/103961. I think I understand what you mean by etically (although it's not defined in the OED nor can I find it on the web - did you make it up?). 'Toast' behaves in an unusual and interesting way - there is no (mass noun) 'toast', distinct from slices of/pieces of/bits of toast, and yet we treat this clearly countable food as uncountable. It seems a reasonable question for me to ask whether any other food has a similar usage. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 14:59
  • Which edition of OED have you got access to? 'Etic' is defined even in ODO. The adverb is used in the related Wikipedia article. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 15:09
  • @EdwinAshworth - I'm using the online full OED. I have found etic and emic. I'm struggling to see their relevance to the OP? Incidentally, neither the OED nor my web search have your adverbial usage (etically). – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 16:12
  • It's used when considering the actual situation language may be struggling to adequately describe, trying to negate the shortcomings of say English. Thus, to give an example, 'furniture' is used for a referent that is obviously countable (1 table + 4 chairs + 1 sofa = 6 pieces of furniture) so is etically discrete; usage determines, however, that the noun is (as normally used, though one can talk about French and German furnitures) grammatically nondiscrete. This mismatch (which is language-specific; un toast is quite acceptable in French, for example) has been covered before. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 16:38
  • @EdwinAshworth - your example (furniture) is used in both a uncountable and countable sense. Both of these senses of the word may be visualised (e.g. a warehouse full of items; a front room with one or two pieces). The point about 'toast' is that its uncountable sense cannot be visualised. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 17:56
  • How can you visualise meat etc without visualising a portion? This is becoming silly. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 13 '15 at 21:32
  • @EdwinAshworth - In your first comment (!) you said "...you can easily count animals or slices on a plate. What about the hunks of meat between these two? They are not 'portions' (way too big). They are beef/pork/meat as a mass noun. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 23:00
  • @macraf - only attempting to explain the OP! Perhaps some of the problem here is that whereas for me 'toast' is an ellipsis of a slice/piece/bit of bread (i.e. countable) toasted at the fire, for others 'toast' is simply bread (i.e. uncountable) toasted at the fire. I never toast 'bread', I always make slices and toast them. I think I am not alone! So far it seems that the answer to my question is that 'toast' is unique in being a countable food treated as being uncountable. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 23:35
  • @macraf - I follow your reasoning, I think, but I don't understand the need of so many commentators to this question, to rationalise the countability of 'toast' to the countability (or not) of its ingredients (slices of bread, which come from bread, which is made of flour, which is made from grain...). – Dan Nov 14 '15 at 00:04
  • 'Toast exists solely in an easily countable form'. Wrong premise: 'When the [Lieken] factory starts production in 2017, it will produce 130,000 tons of toast and rye bread per year.' {Handelsblatt.com edition 199} – Edwin Ashworth Nov 14 '15 at 00:41
  • ;-) That's good. I've edited my question accordingly. I guess in the modern world everything can be mass produced to the point of becoming an uncountable mass. Probably @EdwinAshworth you've had enough - and thank you for hanging in - but if not, are you able to come up with another example of a food that, even when it is in domestic-sized, countable amounts is nevertheless treated as uncountable ? – Dan Nov 14 '15 at 00:54
  • It is now seen to be fairly mundane. Beef, pork, bacon, butter, venison, swordfish.... Bread when unpremodified. Fruit in normal domestic usage. Cheese, ham and chicken etc comprise a grey area (you could have a whole ham etc). Beans, lentils and rice etc are another (normally treated as not-countable but certainly count). Chocolate changes sense on being countified. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 14 '15 at 01:15
  • Well... I back down. The phrase "a plate of toast with" is not uncommon. Stock Photo - person holding a plate of toast with jam in bed, A plate of toast with peanut butter. The condition I suggested "if 10 slices of toasted bread packed together cannot be called 'toast'" seems to give false result. – macraf Nov 14 '15 at 02:23

2 Answers2

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Fruit. Corn (U.S.) Maize (U.K.) You have to say "a piece of fruit", "an ear of corn", or "an ear of maize".

Peter Shor
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  • Both of these are commonly treated as a mass nouns at mealtimes aren't they - Would you like some fruit/corn?. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 13:51
  • Would you like some toast? You'll have to come up with a better objection to my answer. – Peter Shor Nov 13 '15 at 13:54
  • Yes, but that's the point of the question! The toast on your plate is clearly and unambiguously countable AND it does not have a physical form that is uncountable, and yet you say 'some' toast rather than 'a' toast' or 'two toasts'. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 14:00
  • You can cut up fruit, and you get an uncountable form, even though fruit naturally comes in countable units. So you're looking for a food that you *cannot* cut up that's uncountable. (When you cut up toast, it becomes croutons or bread crumbs.) That's hard. Name another food that becomes something else when cut up. – Peter Shor Nov 13 '15 at 14:16
  • Not quite... The OP is about usage. 'Fruit' exists as both a mass noun - when I want fruit in a shop or cafe I'll ask if they have some/any fruit - and also as a countable noun. 'Toast' only exists as a mass noun even though it has no 'mass' form and is, actually, countable. – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 14:21
  • Fruit does not exist as a countable noun in the sense you're talking about. If you wanted something from a basket of apples, pears, and peaches, you would not say "could you give me a fruit?". – Peter Shor Nov 13 '15 at 15:59
  • Unusual, but entirely possible - (in a hurry to a fruit and veg seller) "I don't mind which, just give me two fruits". – Dan Nov 13 '15 at 16:05
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I would say Jello perhaps? Though almost always preportioned it's extremely uncommon to hear someone order "a Jello". My recollection is that nearly everyone orders "some jello", even when it's portioned out in full view.

Misneac
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  • I'm thinking mainly of usage. For practical purposes, even when made at home jello is portioned, and thus easily countable. The contrast is provided by jello shots; "a jello shot" is common when describing a container of jello with alcohol in it, whereas "some jello" would likely be used to describe the same container with no alcohol in it. – Misneac Nov 13 '15 at 13:48