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universal sorter. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
universal sorter, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
universal sorter in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
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The term wine is usually uncountable; however, the plural wines can refer to varieties of wine, such as chardonnay and merlot.
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Etymology
Compound of universal + sorter; first used in print in or around 1981 by Hendrik Bunt (see quote below) modeled on universal grinder.
Noun
universal sorter
- (linguistics) A mechanism whereby uncountable nouns are made countable and abstract.
1981, Hendrik Bunt, The formal semantics of mass terms, Amsterdam (dissertation), →OCLC, page 11:The conceivability of this machine, that we might call the "Universal Sorter", indicates that in principle any "mass noun" can be used as a count noun. Of course, it is true that a "mass noun" like 'wine' undergoes a shift in meaning when used as a count noun...
Usage notes
A related semantic mechanism, the universal packager, also creates countable nouns. The universal sorter mechanism creates an abstract noun (e.g. wines in the sense of "kinds of wine"); the universal packager can indicate a concrete noun (e.g. coffees in the sense of "cups of coffee").