It is generally held that the denotation of a mass noun is in some sense qualitatively different from that of a count noun, even in the case of near synonyms like coins vs. change. A singular count noun is usually taken to denote a class of objects and its plural counterpart a class of groups or sets of such objects; so, while a singular count noun has singular individuals in its extension (e.g. "coin" is true of single coins), a plural one has plural individuals or groups in its extension (e.g. "coins" is true of pluralities of coins). A mass noun is instead generally interpreted either as a mereological whole of some kind; or else its extension is drawn from a domain of substances whose minimal components are somehow more elusive than ordinary individuals. For example, the denotation of "change" can be taken to be some kind of substance whose minimal parts don't have the same identification criteria as coins. On this view, the minimal parts of mass nouns extensions are surrounded by mystery and this is why we cannot count them. I propose instead that the extension of mass nouns (like change) is essentially the same as that of plurals (like coins). A mass noun simply denotes a set of ordinary individuals plus all the pluralities of such individuals. For example, "change" denotes, roughly, single coins and all the possible sets or pluralities of coins. This view is an "atomistic" one: we are committed to claiming that for each mass noun there are minimal objects of that kind, just like for count nouns, even if the size of these minimal parts may be vague. The main difference between count and mass nouns thus comes to the following: while count nouns single out in the lexicon the relevant atoms or minimal parts (by making them exclusive constituents of their extension), mass nouns do not. The fact that the denotation of count nouns may be directly counted will be argued to follow in a natural way from this difference. This view is based upon the following arguably natural intuition. Common nouns in general refer to qualitatively homogeneous aspects of the world and there are two plausible ways of doing so. Either we let a noun denote the minimal representatives of a kind or substance (and we get count nouns). Or we let it denote all the homogeneous parts of that kind or substance (and we get mass nouns).