Apple not such a great example Just as English has a sense of information that is countable See information spoiling many a teaching example apple can be used uncountably It is really not very different from a grain vs grain except in the relative frequency of the mass senses vs the uncountable senses Most natural languages confound countable and uncountable in a few ways For clarity English requires explicit constructions or quantizing or massifying determiners to make explicit what semantic aspect of a word is intended A single grain a type of grain much grain a container of grain It is not hard to imagine a person seeing freight cars full of apples saying That s a lot of apple There may be no English noun that is not both countable and uncountable in some uses