 Nor was 个 the only general classifier in the history of Chinese . The aforementioned 介 jiè was being used as a general classifier before the Qin Dynasty ( 221 BCE ) ; it was originally a noun referring to individual items out of a string of connected shells or clothes , and eventually came to be used as a classifier for " individual " objects ( as opposed to pairs or groups of objects ) before becoming a general classifier . Another general classifier was 枚 méi , which originally referred to small twigs . Since twigs were used for counting items , 枚 became a counter word : any items , including people , could be counted as " one 枚 , two 枚 " , etc . 枚 was the most common classifier in use during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period ( 420 – 589 CE ) , but today is no longer a general classifier , and is only used rarely , as a specialized classifier for items such as pins and badges . Kathleen Ahrens has claimed that 隻 ( zhī in Mandarin and jia in Taiwanese ) , the classifier for animals in Mandarin , is another general classifier in Taiwanese and may be becoming one in the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan . 
