# Is 'furniture' an abstract noun or a concrete noun?



## JungKim

Common nouns consist of abstract nouns and concrete nouns.
These two are mutually exclusive in that, if a noun is classified as one in a given context, the same noun cannot be classified as the other in the same context.
'Furniture' is always uncountable. Since it refers to a collection of chairs, tables, beds, etc., it seems to be a concrete noun. But then, the "collection" itself is not concrete as you cannot count the collection. So, you could say that 'furniture' is an abstraction of the collection, in which case it could be an abstract noun. But I'm not so sure about calling it an abstract noun yet.
So which one is it?


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## JulianStuart

All the furniture I have is pretty solid, even though very little of it is made out of concrete  Those who devise such classification schemes will have to answer your question - I can’t


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## MilkyBarKid

'furniture' refers to pieces/articles of furniture. 'collection' may be an abstract noun...but " (of) furniture' remains concrete.
You are playing with semantics...and losing.


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## Glenfarclas

I have never heard of this distinction, and I can't imagine ever wanting to use it.


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## JungKim

Glenfarclas said:


> I have never heard of this distinction, and I can't imagine ever wanting to use it.


Right, native speakers don't have to know anything about grammar terms, but here's the distinction in the Oxford Dictionary. Just so you know.


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## JungKim

JulianStuart said:


> All the furniture I have is pretty solid, even though very little of it is made out of concrete  Those who devise such classification schemes will have to answer your question - I can’t





MilkyBarKid said:


> 'furniture' refers to pieces/articles of furniture. 'collection' may be an abstract noun...but " (of) furniture' remains concrete.
> You are playing with semantics...and losing.



Actually, I'm not really looking to find a definitive answer. It'd be best if I could find one, but I doubt I can.
I'm just looking to find out if native speakers who are aware of these terms find it hard to call 'furniture' either an abstract noun or a concrete noun.


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## Glenfarclas

JungKim said:


> Right, native speakers don't have to know anything about grammar terms, but here's the distinction in the Oxford Dictionary. Just so you know.



While a few of those categories are linguistically relevant -- I'm thinking mostly of proper nouns, and countable vs. uncountable nouns -- several of the others are matters of opinion and have no effect on the language itself. There's a good reason that dictionaries don't try to tell you whether a noun is "abstract" or not.


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## Andygc

The answer to your question is in your link 





> An abstract noun is a noun which refers to ideas, qualities, and conditions - things that cannot be seen or touched and things which have no physical reality,


I can see and touch furniture, and furniture always has a physical reality. How can you possibly think that furniture could ever be abstract?


JungKim said:


> But then, the "collection" itself is not concrete as you cannot count the collection.


Where is there a requirement for concrete nouns to be countable?


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## JungKim

Andygc said:


> Where is there a requirement for concrete nouns to be countable?


Actually, there is no such requirement.
So 'furniture' is an uncountable concrete noun. Thanks.


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## natkretep

I remember the terms 'concrete noun' and 'abstract noun' being used at school. As you said, whether a noun is countable or whether it is concrete are separate issues.


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## Andygc

JK, I've long been aware of this way of classifying nouns, but I've never known a reason why it might matter. Does this classification help you to learn English?


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

I agree that there are concrete/abstract nouns on one hand, and there are countable/non-countable nouns on the other.

As long as we're getting into details, I like to think of 'furniture', 'news', 'advice', etc. as 'collective nouns' (a subset of non-countable nouns); these are the ones that take a verb in the singular, have no plural form ('furnitures') and cannot be used with the indefinite article [not 'a furniture/an information', etc.].We say 'a piece of' instead of 'a/an'; if there are more than one piece, we say 'two/three/a few/several (etc.) pieces of' and use a plural verb.


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## Keith Bradford

Furniture can be _wooden, brown, worm-eaten, plastic_... and if you stub your toe on it in the dark you'll find it can be very _hard_.  All of these are real attributes, not metaphors.  So furniture is very definitely a concrete noun.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Keith Bradford said:


> Furniture can be _wooden, brown, worm-eaten, plastic_... and if you stub your toe on it in the dark you'll find it can be very _hard_.  All of these are real attributes, not metaphors.  So furniture is very definitely a concrete noun.


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## dojibear

I think most of this confusion disappears if you use *actual sentences*. In this entire thread, neither OP nor anyone else has used any *actual sentences.* In real sentences, the difference will become clear, I think. That is why, in most threads, we insist on an *example sentence.*

For example, we cannot use "furniture" as a singular concrete noun. We need to add what is called a "measure word" in some grammars:

I bought *an item of furniture *yesterday.
I bought *a furniture* yesterday.


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## RedwoodGrove

As Diogenes once said, "I have seen Plato's chair and I have seen Plato's table, but I have never seen his chair-ness or his table-ness." (Referring to so-called Platonic ideals.)


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## Keith Bradford

dojibear said:


> ... In this entire thread, neither OP nor anyone else has used any *actual sentences.*..


Pardon me!  Post #13: "Furniture can be _wooden, brown, worm-eaten, plastic_... and if you stub your toe on it in the dark you'll find it can be very _hard_."

The fact that you can't count it isn't relevant - you can't count sand or water, but they're concrete nouns.  As indeed is "_concrete_".


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## e2efour

Just to give a definition of _concrete noun_ (from the Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar):

"Of a *noun: denoting a physical object: a person, an animal, or an observable, touchable thing; contrasted with *abstract."​
Also:
"It [the classification abstract v. concrete] is unsatisfactory as a way of trying to deal with syntactic differences: the abstract label does fit many uncount nouns 
(e.g. _Everybody needs advice/fun/luck_; not *_an advice/ *funs/*two lucks_), but abstract nouns also include count nouns (e.g. _We had an idea/another quarrel/better solutions_; 
not *_We had idea/quarrel/better solution_)."​


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## Keith Bradford

Essentially: Can you see it, can you touch it, can you feel it on your skin?  Does it occupy space in the physical universe? If you can answer _Yes_ to either of these, the noun is concrete.


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## dojibear

Keith Bradford said:


> Furniture can be _wooden, brown, worm-eaten, plastic_... and if you stub your toe on it in the dark you'll find it can be very _hard_.



You are right. That is a real sentence. But it is odd. How can a physical object be both "wooden" and "plastic"? It appears you are using "Furniture" in this sentence to mean "a generic *class *of things" rather than any actual thing (which would be wooden *or* plastic *or *something else).

To me that appears to be "abstract", not "concrete", by the definitions in #18.


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## Keith Bradford

dojibear said:


> ... How can a physical object be both "wooden" and "plastic"?



Wooden legs, plastic seat.  But I actually meant "wooden or plastic or..."



> It appears you are using "Furniture" in this sentence to mean "a generic *class *of things" rather than any actual thing (which would be wooden *or* plastic *or *something else)...


No I'm certainly not, I'm talking about solid objects of which I own a houseful.  I'm sitting on one at this minute.  I'm surrounded by _furniture _which I can see, touch, and which takes up space in the physical universe.  It is concrete and therefore the word _furniture _is a concrete noun.

I really cannot explain this more simply.


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## JungKim

Andygc said:


> JK, I've long been aware of this way of classifying nouns, but I've never known a reason why it might matter. Does this classification help you to learn English?


Most nouns can be both countable and uncountable depending on context. Even those abstract nouns and material nouns that are normally uncountable can be countable in certain context. On the contrary, nouns like 'furniture', 'equipment', 'clothing' etc. are uncountable regardless of the context in which they're used, so I was wondering what makes them uncountable regardless of context. And I've sort of realized that one thing these nouns have in common is the fact that they're not really referring to an individual item of 'furniture', 'equipment' or 'clothing', but to sort of an abstract idea that goes beyond such an individual item. Thus, I was beginning to wonder if these are indeed abstract nouns or concrete nouns.



ain'ttranslationfun? said:


> I agree that there are concrete/abstract nouns on one hand, and there are countable/non-countable nouns on the other.
> 
> As long as we're getting into details, I like to think of 'furniture', 'news', 'advice', etc. as 'collective nouns' (a subset of non-countable nouns); these are the ones that take a verb in the singular, have no plural form ('furnitures') and cannot be used with the indefinite article [not 'a furniture/an information', etc.].We say 'a piece of' instead of 'a/an'; if there are more than one piece, we say 'two/three/a few/several (etc.) pieces of' and use a plural verb.



But as far as I know, the term 'collective nouns' is reserved for nouns like 'family', 'committee', etc., as shown in Oxford Dictionary. So I wonder if you can use the same term for 'furniture', 'news', 'advice' etc.


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## e2efour

Collective nouns refer to people or animals.


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## dojibear

Keith Bradford said:


> I'm surrounded by _furniture _which I can see...



This is another good sentence. I think my confusion is because "furniture" is a singular noun with a plural meaning. Your sentence means that you are surrounded by a group of objects, not surrounded by one object. A synonym is "furnishing*s*" (which comes from the same roots).

The WR dictionary definition: _Furniture (n): movable article*s*, such as table*s*, chair*s* or cabinet*s*_



Keith Bradford said:


> Can you see it, can you touch it, can you feel it on your skin?



In this sentence each "it" refers to a plural thing. I'm not used to that. That confused me. I can see "it" -- an item of furniture. Or I can see "them" -- all of the furniture in the room.

But I don't want to side-track the conversation, so I'll stop commenting and just observe.


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## Keith Bradford

JungKim said:


> ... I've sort of realized that one thing these nouns have in common is the fact that they're not really referring to an individual item of 'furniture', 'equipment' or 'clothing', but to sort of an abstract idea that goes beyond such an individual item. ...


That's where you're wrong.  They do not represent any abstract idea, but they do to some extent resemble a collective noun like 'family', 'committee'.  In a way "An item of furniture" is like "A member of the family... A committee member..."

In #23, e2efour says that collective nouns refer to people or animals, and this is the traditional view.  But if it helps to see "furniture" and "clothing" as concrete collective nouns and "information" as an abstract collective noun, then good luck.  All these theoretical terms are, after all, only arbitrary nets to catch the universe in.


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## wandle

JungKim said:


> 'furniture' is an abstraction of the collection,


That is right.
Chambers English Dictionary says that 'abstract' means 'considered as a mental concept' in contrast to 'concrete' which means 'denoting a particular thing'.

Thus we can say that 'furniture' is to 'table' or 'chair' as 'equipment' is to 'computer' or 'chainsaw'.
'Furniture' and 'equipment' are abstract nouns denoting the class to which the individual items belong. The names of the items are concrete nouns.


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## Keith Bradford

Wandle, have you read my #25?  Do you not say "The room held a collection of old furniture" or "He had a lorry-load of equipment"?  There is nothing abstract about furniture or equipment - you can see it, touch it and pay good money for it.  The abstract nouns are "collection" and "lorry-load".


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## RedwoodGrove

Life is observable in the physical world, though nobody seems to be able to give a 100% accurate and complete description of it. Still, we all know what it is. I would say it is concrete in the same way the noun "furniture" is. Now, "livelihood" gets a little more abstract.

JungKim, in my early days I remember struggling with this question and I don't recall ever having any kind of instruction in it or seeing any kind of mention or description of it anywhere. Perhaps if I had taken a few more classes in linguistics it might have come up.


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## se16teddy

Abstract/concrete is probably a different category from countable/uncountable, but I think we sometimes make a concrete noun uncountable to give it an abstract flavour - the spirit of the thing rather than the physical object.
_Table is more ineluctable than chair. _


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## e2efour

e2efour said:


> Collective nouns refer to people or animals.



Exploring this definition further, I found in Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage "Collective nouns--singular nouns that for a number of persons or things considered as a group."

"Chambers 1985 points out that one class of collective nouns--those like _baggage_, _cutlery_, _dinnerware_ that stand for a collection of inanimate objects--...are regularly singular."

Another description of _furniture_ is a mass noun, i.e. uncountable.

I hardly think that the word _abstract_ can be applied to _furniture_ when you bump into it or buy new items.


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## wandle

Keith Bradford said:


> There is nothing abstract about furniture or equipment


We need to distinguish meaning and reference. These are two distinct functions of words.

Take an obvious abstract noun such as 'manhood'. This means 'the state of being a man'. Yet we can use the word to refer to a male population: 'The entire manhood of the village was wiped out'. Here 'manhood' is a noun, abstract in meaning, used in reference to a collection of people.

'Manhood' is also used as a euphemism for 'penis'. In that case, it is an abstract noun used metaphorically to refer to a concrete item, a particular thing.

'Furniture' is a term for a class of things and thus its meaning is necessarily abstract, because a class does not exist as a concrete, tangible thing.
When we are moving house, we can say, 'OK, all the furniture is in the van'. We are using the abstract noun to refer to that collection of items.


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## e2efour

Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics:

"Abstract: A traditional term used in grammar to describe nouns which lack observable reference, such as thought, mystery and principle; opposed to concrete, 
where the nouns have physical attributes, such as tree, box and dog._ Music _and _happiness_, for example, have been called abstract nouns, though the ﬁrst is perceptible 
to the senses, and the second can be related to observable behaviour. Linguistically oriented grammars prefer to operate with such formal distinctions as countability."​If we say that _furniture_ is the name of a class of objects, we are faced with the question of whether the class itself includes _furniture_.
We are then talking about two distinct uses of_ furniture. _One has attributes of physicality, the other is an abstract name.


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## wandle

e2efour said:


> we are faced with the question of whether the class itself includes _furniture_.


How can it?
We cannot sit on a furniture: unless, of course, we deliberately use 'furniture' to refer to a chair in the same way as using 'manhood' to refer to a penis.
In that case, it is still an abstract noun (used metaphorically to refer to a physical thing).


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## e2efour

We cannot put on a trousers either or cut paper with a scissors.

If we are talking about grammar, then _furniture/trousers/scissors _have in common uncountability. As non-count nouns they are not abstract in the normal meaning of the word.

If we are talking about philosophy, that is outside the scope of this forum.


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## wandle

e2efour said:


> We cannot put on a trousers either or cut paper with a scissors.


The reason in that case is different. Those are conventional plural terms used in reference to a single thing and are therefore concrete in meaning.
They are not abstract nouns, but 'furniture', 'clothing' and 'cutlery' are abstract.

Take the words of the song, 'Go and dress yourself, Dinah, in gorgeous array'. The noun 'array' is abstract in meaning, but is here used in reference to clothes.

The distinction between abstract and concrete belongs to the field of meaning, not that of reference.


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## Myridon

Keith Bradford said:


> Wandle, have you read my #25?  Do you not say "The room held a collection of old furniture" or "He had a lorry-load of equipment"?  There is nothing abstract about furniture or equipment - you can see it, touch it and pay good money for it.  The abstract nouns are "collection" and "lorry-load".


If the room is empty, you say "This room could use some furniture." At that point, it is an unknown number of pieces of unreal furniture.


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## Keith Bradford

wandle said:


> ...We cannot sit on a furniture...


What?  My cat sits on the furniture all the time! 

No, not "a" furniture, but that's not the point.  You don't sit on *a* sand, or sit in *a* water, but nobody's going to argue that _sand _and _water _are abstract nouns, simply because they don't take an indefinite article.  Let's separate out the concepts "uncountable" and "abstract"; they're totally different.

And to say that "furniture" is an abstract category because it includes many different types of item (#26), is like saying "car" is an abstract category because it includes Volvos, Porsches, Minis...  That way madness lies.


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## wandle

Keith Bradford said:


> is like saying "car" is an abstract category


'Car' can be either abstract or concrete: 'What type of car do you have?' (abstract). 'My car is a Mini' (concrete).

Similarly 'dog', 'cat' and other terms for animals. Richard Dawkins attacks what he regards as the fallacy of essentialism, i.e. the idea that a species name must refer to a real entity, when it is in fact a classificatory term.


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## Keith Bradford

That's as may be for a philosopher, but it's a most uncommon idea in linguistics and does not match any of the definitions quoted above.


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## wandle

Keith Bradford said:


> does not match any of the definitions quoted above.





wandle said:


> Chambers English Dictionary says that 'abstract' means 'considered as a mental concept' in contrast to 'concrete' which means 'denoting a particular thing'.


'What type of car do you have?' (abstract). Here 'car' means a category or class, something that does not have a physical, tangible existence.
'My car is a Mini' (concrete). Here 'car' means an individual vehicle which does physically exist.

In this forum, when discussing the definite and indefinite articles, we have often observed that the same term can have a general meaning, as a class, or a particular meaning, as an individual instance, when used with or without an article or determiner.


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## SevenDays

Right. This is all about semantics.

_Count/uncount_ and _abstract/concrete_ are different ways of semantically classifying nouns. _Abstract_ is existence in thought. All nouns are abstract when conceived in the mind. The furniture (or car) that I have in mind is abstract; the furniture/car that I'm observing and touching for possible purchase is concrete. A related term is _general/generic_; a noun is general/generic when it encompasses all members of its class, so that no single member is individualized. "Furniture" in _I need to buy furniture_ is _abstract_ (I'm thinking out loud) as well as _generic/general_ (I'm thinking about the class, not about individual members of it).

A different thing altogether is how nouns behave in sentence structure. Count nouns are easily pluralized _morphologically_ (we simply add the plural suffix *-s*): _I need to buy two car*s*_. Nouns that are_ not_ count (and which may be classified as mass, abstract, generic) need help (semantic, pragmatic, syntactic help). I can't say _I need to buy two furnitures_, but I can say _I need to buy two pieces of furniture_. But "furniture*s*" becomes viable when it's understood that it means styles/designs/ of furniture. That's why (some) people say _We have furniture*s* of various designs and colors _(= traditional furniture, modern furniture, Italian furniture, rustic furniture, etc.)_. _In proper context, then, mass nouns form plurals just like count nouns: with the addition of -s. Grammatically speaking, there's no difference. And when mass nouns can't be pluralized contextually, English can still express the idea of "furniture" as if it _were_ plural (with an expression such as "all over"): _We need to put furniture all over this room_. It's the _massification_ of a mass noun.

In any event, it's not a topic that can be reduced to a couple of paragraphs, but that's the idea.


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## e2efour

It is true that the word _car_ (abstract) can refer to various kinds of concrete cars.
But, to quote a well-known saying, that's a statement of the _bleeding obvious. _The names of objects are not the same as the objects themselves.

You were wise to quality* _people_ in _That's why some people say _"We have furnitures ...". But that does not make the plural acceptable. It is not a word like _sugar_ or _wines_ which may be used in the plural when talking about varieties of these nouns. I have never heard of anyone talking about _cutleries, dinnerwares _or _luggages_; nor would I expect to find such forms in current use.

*qualify


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## SevenDays

e2efour said:


> It is true that the word _car_ (abstract) can refer to various kinds of concrete cars.
> But, to quote a well-known saying, that's a statement of the _bleeding obvious. _The names of objects are not the same as the objects themselves.
> 
> You were wise to quality _people_ in _That's why some people say _"We have furnitures ...". But that does not make the plural acceptable. It is not a word like _sugar_ or _wines_ which may be used in the plural when talking about varieties of these nouns. I have never heard of anyone talking about _cutleries, dinnerwares _or _luggages_; nor would I expect to find such forms in current use.



I've seen and heard _furnitures_, but I don't recall seeing/hearing _luggages_. Then again, I've never been to Singapore:

_So, in Singapore English, words like furnitures, luggages, equipments sometimes take the -s suffix to mark plurality, and other times they don't._ (source).

I don't have access to the entire book, but I suspect that these plural words make sense contextually. This usage might be "regional" or "non-standard" to an outsider, but quite natural and idiomatic to a local speaker.


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## e2efour

It may sound natural in Singapore English, but not generally.

From the same source:


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## wandle

e2efour said:


> From the same source:


From that quotation it appears as if Singaporeans speak of 'furnitures' when they mean 'pieces of furniture', 'luggages' when they mean 'pieces of luggage', etc.
In other words, that appears to be a usage that has arisen precisely because 'furniture' and similar terms have been treated as concrete instead of abstract: that is, as a result of thinking that a chair could be called 'a furniture', a suitcase 'a luggage', etc.


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## Andygc

Surely the Singaporean "furnitures" is an example of an uncountable being treated as a countable, not something abstract being treated as concrete. I can't imagine a van pulling up outside my house to deliver an idea. I can imagine it delivering some touchable objects - albeit made not of concrete but of wood.

It's fortunate that deciding if nouns are concrete or abstract has no importance whatsoever to successul communication or in terms of grammar.


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## wandle

Andygc said:


> I can't imagine a van pulling up outside my house to deliver an idea.


That point seems to imply that the Singaporean plural 'furnitures' means 'van-loads of furniture' etc. I suspect it means 'pieces of furniture'.
 Perhaps someone with local knowledge could confirm for us which is the case.

As mentioned, the abstract noun 'furniture' can be used metaphorically to refer to the contents of a furniture van.


wandle said:


> When we are moving house, we can say, 'OK, all the furniture is in the van'. We are using the abstract noun to refer to that collection of items.


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## Andygc

My point was that there is nothing abstract about a van-load of furniture. I am implying no meaning to any word in Singaporean English. 

If I say that all the furniture is in the van I am not using an abstract noun, I'm using a concrete noun - I'm referring to things that are tangible, using a collective noun to do so, and I can certainly see and touch all of that furniture if I choose to, so please don't include me in "we". "We" aren't using an abstract noun, "I" am certain that I'm not, but "you" think you are.

As I already pointed out, fortunately this doesn't matter to our ability to communicate, so our failure to agree also doesn't matter.


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## wandle

The thread question is whether 'furniture' is an abstract noun. It has to be so, because it denotes a class or collection of things and a class is a mental concept, not a tangible thing. There is nothing to stop it being used metaphorically in reference to what is concrete, but it remains abstract in meaning. See post 31 (meaning and reference). 'Meaning' in this distinction is what the word says, 'reference' is that which it points to.

Take the word 'majesty'. That is abstract, meaning 'greatness'. However, we use the word metaphorically to refer to the monarch. In that case, 'Her Majesty' is a term abstract in meaning (what it says is 'her greatness') and it is being used in reference to something concrete (what it points to is the person Elizabeth II). When more than one monarch is present, we can say 'Their Majesties moved up the aisle', etc.

The distinction between abstract and concrete belongs to the sphere of meaning, not the sphere of reference. It other words, saying that 'furniture' is an abstract noun is not disputing that furniture consists of concrete, tangible objects.


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## Andygc

I know what the thread question is and I don't think I need you to remind me. I answered very early - post 8. And I disagree with you, because I do not accept your thesis about the meaning of the word. However, there is no possibility of either of us changing the other's opinion so I have nothing more to add.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Andy, the reason I delelted my post (which would have been #51) was because it appeared before I'd finished writing it ("Curses! Foiled again!") I'll try again soon to post what I intended to say in it.


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## JulianStuart

We all know that many nouns can be uses as “countable” and also as “noncountable” depending on the context and intended meaning. It’s a common topic on the forum, because learners often start with a notion that a noun must always be one or the other.  Furniture seems like a dual-purpose word too.  Sometimes it’s the category or class as noted above (the “abstract” moniker) but other times it’s the heavy stuff in my truck (“the “concrete” moniker).  Forcing the word into “always abstract” or “aways concrete” seems misguided and potentially confusing for those whose learning style means they rely on such concepts.


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## grassy

wandle said:


> We need to distinguish meaning and reference.





wandle said:


> 'Manhood' is also used as a euphemism for 'penis'. In that case, it is an abstract noun used metaphorically to refer to a concrete item, a particular thing.



I think that by making this distinction and giving this example you've come dangerously close to assuming that the meaning of every word is necessarily abstract. If reference is about words refering to tangible things in the world, then meaning has to be about representing those things in definitions, which give only very general ideas about words they describe and thus make meaning abstract, no?



wandle said:


> 'Furniture' is a term for a class of things and thus its meaning is necessarily abstract, because a class does not exist as a concrete, tangible thing.



I find the term "class" rather obfuscating here. The WR dictionary defines "furniture" as _movable articles, such as tables, chairs or cabinets_. So, when I imagine all the _movable articles, such as tables, chairs or cabinets _that exist in the world, they seem to be pretty tangible and concrete objects to me.


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## Keith Bradford

Andygc said:


> My point was that there is nothing abstract about a van-load of furniture. ... If I say that all the furniture is in the van I am not using an abstract noun, I'm using a concrete noun - I'm referring to things that are tangible, using a collective noun to do so, and I can certainly see and touch all of that furniture if I choose to, so please don't include me in "we"...


 Hear, hear! 
If "furniture" were an abstract noun (like, perhaps, "category") then wouldn't we be unable to use it in a phrase like "they sat on my furniture"?  And wouldn't it be possible to use it in a phrase such as "a furniture of chairs"? 

"Furniture" is no more an abstraction than "hair" or "clothes".


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## wandle

grassy said:


> assuming that the meaning of every word is necessarily abstract.


No, though every word is symbolic. It is not the same as what it denotes. That alone does not qualify it as abstract in contrast with concrete.


grassy said:


> If reference is about words refering to tangible things in the world, then meaning has to be about representing those things in definitions


Reference (as contrasted with meaning) is what the word (the symbol) points to. That can be abstract or concrete.
Meaning (as contrasted with reference) is not a definition: it is what the word says in its own right, so to speak. The word 'Watergate' has an original literal meaning (the city gate by the water). It was adopted as the name of an hotel in Washington. Then it became a shorthand term for the scandal which undid Richard Nixon. At this stage, it was a word with a concrete literal meaning used metaphorically (at more than one remove) in reference to an abstract concept.

Some words are pure symbols, not having any internal meaning in their own right. 'Ten' has no meaning that could be deduced from its form or content. It only has reference to the numerical class it is assigned to by convention.


grassy said:


> So, when I imagine all the _movable articles, such as tables, chairs or cabinets _that exist in the world, they seem to be pretty tangible and concrete objects to me.


Yes, they are all concrete objects, but simply by speaking of 'all' (or 'some') such objects, it is clear that we are speaking of a class.


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## wandle

Keith Bradford said:


> If "furniture" were an abstract noun (like, perhaps, "category") then wouldn't we be unable to use it in a phrase like "they sat on my furniture"? And wouldn't it be possible to use it in a phrase such as "a furniture of chairs"?


Why should it be like 'category'? The word originally means 'the process of furnishing or provision'. Then this abstract term becomes used by metaphor to refer to the things furnished or provided.


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## siares

To use some test sentences from the previous post, is it possible to say in jest:
The cat jumped on my inheritance.
There goes the van loaded with my inheritance.

Also, do the senses really play a major role in abstractness - then a unicorn would have to be an abstract noun?


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## wandle

siares said:


> is it possible to say in jest:
> The cat jumped on my inheritance.
> There goes the van loaded with my inheritance.


Certainly it is, as a jest.

In fact, if such a saying were repeated often enough, the expression could become established as a regular meaning.


siares said:


> Also, do the senses really play a major role in abstractness - then a unicorn would have to be an abstract noun?


That is a good question. It brings out the difference between meaning and reference (see post 31 and post 55.) The meaning of 'unicorn' is 'one-horn' (I.e. a single-horned animal).

When the word is used, say, in telling a story, the narrator uses it with that concrete meaning. However, unlike the word 'cat', the word 'unicorn' cannot refer to anything real. It is a word that has meaning, but no reference.


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## Keith Bradford

wandle said:


> ... However, unlike the word 'cat', the word 'unicorn' cannot refer to anything real...



I suggest you look in a toyshop one of these days.


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## wandle

Very well, but that is a toy, not an animal. This once again show us the distinction of meaning and reference. The meaning as an animal is used in children's stories, but it has no reference.


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## e2efour

This is a forum about grammar and syntax. There is no place for philosophical statements.

The noun _unicorn_ may be described as a concrete noun. It has a concrete reference and everyone know what it means.
I have never seen an _alien_ (from another world), but I would never describe it as an abstract noun.

Quite simply, _furniture_ is a non-count mass noun. No grammar book would use the term abstract noun for it.

I suggest that this thread be brought to an end.


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## wandle

e2efour said:


> The noun _unicorn_ may be described as a concrete noun.


Certainly, in terms of meaning, as long as we distinguish meaning from reference.


e2efour said:


> It has a concrete reference


Only as in post 59; not as used in telling a fairy story (in that context, it is concrete in meaning, but refers to a mental idea).


e2efour said:


> Quite simply, _furniture_ is a non-count mass noun.


According to earlier posts, countability is a different question.





Keith Bradford said:


> Let's separate out the concepts "uncountable" and "abstract"; they're totally different.





SevenDays said:


> _Count/uncount_ and _abstract/concrete_ are different ways of semantically classifying nouns.


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## Cagey

Once the distinctions between abstract/concrete and countable/uncountable have been made, this ceases to be a language question. It becomes a philosophical one. As been said above, this puts it outside the scope of this forum. 

This thread is closed. 

Cagey, 
moderator


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