Editing Count noun (section)

==Grammatical distinction==
The concept of a "mass noun" is a [[grammar|grammatical]] concept and is not based on the innate nature of the object to which that noun refers. For example, "seven chairs" and "some furniture" could refer to exactly the same objects, with "seven chairs" referring to them as a collection of individual objects but with "some furniture" referring to them as a single undifferentiated unit. However, some abstract phenomena like "fun" and "hope" have properties which make it difficult to refer to them with a count noun.  

[[Classifier (linguistics)|Classifiers]] are sometimes used as count nouns preceding mass nouns, in order to redirect the speaker's focus away from the mass nature. For example, "There's some ''furniture'' in the room" can be restated, with a change of focus, to "There are some ''pieces'' of ''furniture'' in the room"; and "let's have some ''fun''" can be refocused as "Let's have a ''bit'' of ''fun''".

In English, some nouns are used most frequently as mass nouns, with or without a classifier (as in "Waiter, I'll have some ''coffee''" or "Waiter, I'll have a ''cup'' of ''coffee''"), but also, less frequently, as count nouns (as in "Waiter, we'll have three ''coffees''.")