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I was writing something in Google Docs, and it flagged one of my sentences. The context in question was this (summarized):

Much of the area was [this] district.

The correction/suggestion was this:

Much of the area was a [this] district.

I may just be doubting myself in this circumstance, but I'm thinking my own sentence is correct. Is my sentence correct?

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    Is 'this' the name of the district or a reference to the kind of landscape?
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Oct 8, 2021 at 18:47
  • Name of a district.
    – DiesDunkleGehim
    Commented Oct 8, 2021 at 19:00
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    Then the grammar-checker is definitely wrong (as they sometimes are). You don't need an article before a geographical name.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Oct 8, 2021 at 19:12
  • Something is missing in "Much of the area was Chelsea district." Maybe "Much of the area was the Chelsea district," "Much of the area was a red-light district," or "Much of the area was considered Chelsea district."
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Oct 8, 2021 at 19:13
  • In your example of "Much of the area was a red-light district", is "a" mandatory? If it's not a proper name, I'm not sure if "a" would be required. If you replaced "red-light" with "farmland", adding that "a" seems off.
    – DiesDunkleGehim
    Commented Oct 8, 2021 at 19:16

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Sentence parsers, including Google's, don't have perfect dictionaries. When faced with a word it does not known, the parser will guess at the word's part of speech. I suspect in this case the parser interpreted the word represented by [this] as an adjective, not a proper name.

The following without the article is correct for a proper name:

Much of the area was Chelsea district.

And the following with the article is correct for an adjective:

Much of the area was a seedy district.

If you capitalize the real word represented above as [this], you may get the opposite advice from the grammar checker.

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  • The second example also includes the aforementioned "red-light" and "farmland" examples?
    – DiesDunkleGehim
    Commented Oct 8, 2021 at 19:43

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