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In a mail from my professor, I read

you need to specify all the fields.

Here, he gave us a form with about 25 fields. He asked us to fill out the fields.

I'm skeptical about the usage of the in his statement. I assume that it's used when we are particular about a single object, not for a group of objects (plural).

I smell something odd with professor's sentence. Am I right?

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  • 5
    The raised hands of all the people in all the countries on the 7 continents are disagreeing with you.
    – Digital Chris
    Commented Jun 20, 2014 at 17:36
  • If it helps, mentally replace "all" with "every single one of".
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 6:09

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First of all, the definite article (the) is not specific to singular nouns only. It can be used for plural forms of nouns as well.

Specifically, for your example, "the" should be used for all nouns that have been mentioned before -- explicitly or implicitly. Since, presumably, the context of the mail implied a form that you were supposed to fill, and the form fields are an automatic inclusion in the context, the definite article is a valid choice.

Eg.

I bought a new car. The seat-belts are too tight to be comfortable. The seats are ergonomically designed.

Now since, the car has already been mentioned, the definite article is used for all parts of the car itself, even if they have not been specified explicitly.

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I assume, the is used when we are particular about a single object, not for a group of objects (plurals).

This is incorrect. It can be used to denote one or more thing or person.

However, a must be used to denote one thing or person (but it's an indefinite article).

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