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"Are you asking about the implications of using the definite article in general (which is an English language/usage question) or about its use in this particular song?"

I had asked about "from the night until the morning" in a song's lyrics, but the question was closed before I could answer this comment.

Thing is I did want to know whether it's a matter of style or if it bears any grammatical effect, generally speaking. The verse caught my attention for this very reason, since I'm used to "night till morning", which I can't tell if it's idiomatic or not.

I guess the main point in asking is about the "definiteness" the article carries with it. If I wrote that verse in a formal prose context, say, an exam, would it imply the meaning of "overnight", like time-framing what's being said? Or else, it is unusual phrasing, therefore stylistic in essence?

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  • This may help: "Are you asking about the in [prose] or in [lyrics]? In lyrics and poetry, most bets are off to allow for poetic license. So that won't be addressed here, due to wording that works there and not in normal use. Consider the lyric, in context, "Ooh, Baby. Ooh, Baby, Baby." And the stream "Yes yes a thousand times yes." Guaranteed that "from the night until the morning" uses the to match the rhythm or for emphasis.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Dec 2, 2022 at 21:10
  • So "the distance that's growing in our lives from the night until the morning" in formal usage would be better expressed by "tonight" or "overnight" not to wax poetic, basically?
    – Peter
    Dec 2, 2022 at 21:17
  • Okay. Even the song Night and Day could have been "Constantly, you are the one." Now, "24/7, you are the one." Less tautology, but worser.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Dec 2, 2022 at 21:19
  • Night until morning is an idiomatic expression meaning something like all night: The baby cried night until morning = The baby cried all night.
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Dec 3, 2022 at 5:12
  • Lots of fixed phrases like this, e.g (from) dusk to dawn. As for the "definiteness" supposedly expressed by the "definite article", sometimes it's there, and it refers to information known to the speaker and maybe the hearer, which may have been expressed recently in their discourse. But it can refer to any presupposition, true or not; and often it's not "definite", but rather part of an idiom, like dialing the wrong number, which is pretty much the opposite of definite, whichever sense one chooses.
    – John Lawler
    Dec 3, 2022 at 17:25

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