universal grinder

— Consider a machine, the “universal grinder”. This machine is rather like a meat grinder in that one introduces something into one end, the grinder chops and grinds it up into a homogeneous mass and spews it onto the floor from its other end. The difference between the universal grinder and a meat grinder is that the universal grinder’s machinery allows it to chop up any object no matter how large, no matter how small, no matter how soft, no matter how hard. […] 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’). […] It is apparent that this test can be employed at will, always giving us a mass sense of count nouns having physical objects as their extension.