Mass Nouns vs. Count Nouns

Here’s a sentence I wrote:

“Don’t confuse attention for alliance.”

What’s wrong with this? Nothing as far as I can tell. Of course, that’s why I use an editor — thank you, Paul Stregevsky! Paul has sharpened my language and taught me more about writing with vigor than anyone else.

Paul’s eagle eye spotted that I had compared a “mass” noun (attention) with a “count” noun (alliance). I didn’t even know there were different types of nouns! Paul explained the difference as follows:

“A mass noun is a noun that can’t be preceded by an article (a or an). Applesauce is a mass noun; apple is a count noun.”

Thus, I changed the sentence as follows:

“Don’t confuse attention for agreement.”

That’s much better (even if you never knew why).