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An apple is ground or sliced, “an” can be omitted.

There’s apple, watermelon, melon, etc.

If a mirror is broken or shattered, can “a” be omitted?

There’s mirror.

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    Apples can be chopped, cooked, pureed, and if raw grated or sliced. You ground (mince in BrEng) meat, seeds, grains, and even coconut but not apples.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 10:37
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    @Mari-LouA If one passes apples through a device with a similar sort of action to the one used to make ground (BrEng minced) meat (e.g. to prepare the apples for a cider press) in AmEng it would be acceptable to use the verb "to grind" for the process, and the adjective "ground" to describe the result. (It's a grinder. It grinds things. They come out ground.) It's not normally done with apples, so it's not a common usage, but not one objectionable enough to make comment.
    – R.M.
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 13:12
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    @R.M. Thank you, I had not thought about the possibility of making apple juice / cider. Still it is worthwhile pointing out that "ground apple" is uncommon in speech and in recipes, as you also mentioned.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 13:23
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    @Mari-LouA "ground apple" is uncommon in speech and in recipes - Not in French, Dutch, Danish, etc. "Pommes frites" are not fried apples!
    – alephzero
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 16:07
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    @Mari-LouA Sacrilege! Making cider is the only thing apples are good for. Eating them is just a waste of good fermentation material.
    – alephzero
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 16:08

5 Answers 5

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Some nouns like "apple" and "watermelon" are sometimes count nouns, and sometimes non-count nouns, depending on how we're thinking about them, not whether they're solid or broken.

When we're thinking of individual pieces of fruit, "apple" and "watermelon" are count nouns:

I have an apple in my lunch.

We almost ate a whole watermelon.

When we think of them as ingredients or a general substance, they are non-count nouns:

This pie needs more apple.

There's watermelon all over the lawn.

With "mirror", generally speaking, when it's broken, we don't think of it as a mirror anymore because it doesn't reflect images, so it's not a mirror. We think about it as a general substance:

"Our living room mirror broke, and now there's glass all over the carpet."

Mirrors stop being mirrors when they break, and become glass.

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    Broken pieces of mirror are still "mirrors", just smaller pieces. There's glass on the carpet, will first evoke a broken drinking glass, vase or bottle not a mirror.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 6:11
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    "Use those broken pieces of mirror to create a very unique and very lovely tabletop", "In the second stage, the pieces of mirror are now arranged in three different geometrical shapes (See Figures 7, 8 and 9).", "I Googled broken glass jewelry, so this would work for most pieces of mirror.", "In Chehel Sotun palace in addition to vertical mirrors, smaller pieces of mirror were used to decorate the ceiling"
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 6:47
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    You could say "there are bits of mirror all over the carpet" and that would be idiomatic, but "there's mirror" would still be strange. So it's kind of middle-ground.
    – hobbs
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 14:00
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    @hobbs I would view "there's mirror all over the carpet" as being a deliberately comedic subversion of the usual. That is, it does sound strange, but definitely within the realm of possibility of things someone might say if they're not being too serious :)
    – Muzer
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 15:30
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    "there's mirror all over the carpet" would certainly not be used formally but I could see it in a poem or a song lyric, possibly when describing a very surreal or abstract scene. See also "are we Dancer?" as a lyric. It's definitely not grammatically correct because as this answer states it is not an uncounted noun.
    – Rodney
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 15:49
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You could potentially use "you've got mirror all over the floor" as a humorous/slang-like expression ("you've got" in this sentence meaning "you have caused there to be").

As explained by other answers, it isn't grammatically correct English but it does have a comical aspect to it, perhaps even invoking surreal connotations (think Salvador Dalí's Persistence of Memory painting).

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  • Definite +1 on this; wordplay on this nature (deliberately mixing up countable and uncountable, etc) is common.
    – CCTO
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 21:08
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There are pieces of the mirror on ground, and the mirror is a specific object which is shattered. Thereby, "the" has to be added in front of mirror. or Broken mirrors can be described as pieces of the mirror

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  • No, that’s not what I’m wondering about.
    – user142460
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 3:58
  • As my examples show, it is not absolutely necessary to add the definite article "the" between "of" and "mirror" to make There are pieces of the mirror…. However, the article is essential before the noun ground, i.e. “There are pieces of mirror on the ground” See my and Geoff Davids' answer which have the floor.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 25, 2021 at 8:04
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  • There's an apple, avocado and a watermelon.

One of each fruit. If there is more than one piece of fruit the plural verb "are" should be used.

  • There are apples, avocados and watermelons.

The same principle applies to a mirror which is a countable noun

  • There's a mirror on the table

More than one mirror becomes

  • There are three mirrors on the table

If one of the three mirrors falls and breaks…

  • There are bits/pieces of mirror on the floor
  • There's a broken mirror

From the net

  • …for diamonds are bought and worn for the same reason that magpies assume unto themselves such things as bits of tin and broken mirror glass simply because they glitter, and glitter more than any other substance.

  • He took the broken pieces of mirror and began to fit them onto the entrance wall, one piece at a time, as though he were constructing a mosaic.

  • Lil kneels on the floor and picks up the broken pieces of mirror

  • Moreover , the young dancers are dressed in costumes made up of bits of mirror which "flash and sparkle as they move"

Mirror and glass are not the same, the former is countable while the latter, a substance, is uncountable. So while the phrase "There's glass…" is grammatical, the same cannot be said for "There's mirror” even when that object is broken or shattered (into pieces).

See the Google Ngram chart below

enter image description here

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    I would disagree that "there's mirror all over the floor" is ungrammatical. It's unusual, but not ungrammatical, regardless of the semantics of the word "mirror". The general principle of turning a count noun into a mass noun, particularly in order to emphasise that it's been damaged, is a productive one. See for instance the example due to the linguist Ronald Langacker at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Langacker#Quotes/examples: "After I ran over the cat with our car, there was cat all over the driveway". It has a tone of grim humour, and the wording is unusual, but grammatical.
    – tea-and-cake
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 14:16
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    @tea-and-cake would you tell an English learner that "There's table" is grammatical because it's become a mass noun when it is smashed or damaged?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 24, 2021 at 16:50
  • Yes, if they asked if it was grammatical, I certainly wouldn't tell them it was ungrammatical. I'd explain why it was grammatical, and tell them when they'd hear it and what connotations it has, as has indeed been done in other answers.
    – tea-and-cake
    Commented Aug 25, 2021 at 8:03
  • @tea-and-cake But gotube's answer never says There's mirror is grammatical, they changed the word to glass claiming a mirror is no longer a mirror when it is broken but becomes glass. Your example of a cat's dead body being crushed under the wheels of a car, is still a "cat", the noun doesn't change into bones and blood. There's only one answer that clearly says There's mirror on the floor is acceptable if it were constructed as You've got mirror on the floor, and I'd agree with that usage but for me it remains distinctly different from There's mirror....
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 25, 2021 at 8:17
  • I was referring not to gotube's answer, but to Geoff's, which talks about the connotations. You may well consider There's mirror all over the floor ungrammatical, but your justifications are based on semantics and context, not grammar. I disagree, and am happy to see a count noun used as a mass noun, which is a marked, jocular, but recognised and grammatical usage -- as, it seems, is Langacker, who appears to be the only linguist cited in response to the question. We'll have to agree to disagree.
    – tea-and-cake
    Commented Aug 25, 2021 at 9:23
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In addition to the other excellent answers - I would note that nouns and even proper nouns are sometimes used informally as non-count nouns for comedic effect.

For example:

My car exploded! Now there's car all over the road.

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