Questions tagged [definite-articles]
This tag is for questions about the definite article.
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The bicycle is a vehicle but the bicycle in this room is just a decoration
Can the definite article have two different meanings in front of identical words in one sentence? As in
The bicycle is a vehicle but the bicycle in this room is just a decoration.
Or perhaps this ...
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Prefixing a road name or number with "the" -- geographical preference or proper English? [duplicate]
In reading about the LA Freeway Fire this week, it struck me (from the East Coast) as very awkward when they consistently refer to roads by prefixing them with "the". i.e., "The I-10&...
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usage of "the" - "listen to the TV", or "listen to TV"
Question:
When we only listen to the sound of that machine (TV), not watching its screen, which is appropriate to say "listen to the TV" or "listen to TV"?
Background:
When we ...
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Use of definite article in school grade names
I'm a younger speaker from Chicago. All throughout my education, I've noticed two different ways in which people can refer to grade levels. One includes the definite article and one does not. For ...
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When do you skip the definite article in a ship's name? [duplicate]
Like cars and cities, ships are assumed to be female. Be good to her and she'll take care of you.
Thus, even when the name of a ship is masculine, the vessel itself is still a "she."
The USS ...
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Definite article, italics/quotations for a document name?
The below text is an extract from a document titled Technical Specification 13 Meter Harbor Tug.
Is it sufficient to have the title capitalized or do I need to put it into italics/quotes when ...
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Which determiner is correct, "this" or "the" in "this/the same key"?
I am helping a friend edit a manuscript for an informal reference book about music. There are occasional instances where determiners are being used in a way that I find unfamiliar or awkward. I'm ...
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Why is there no article "the" before "international law"?
Reading through wikipedia's page on international law, I noticed that there is never a definite article "the" before the phrase. It is a set of rules, norms, and standards generally ...
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What is the rule for using the definite article in front of a name? [duplicate]
What is the rule on the basis of which there is a definite article in front of the name of a man-made object such as the Challenger or the Titan?
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"37% of Japanese" vs "37% of the Japanese"
When we refer to certain nationalities, we tend to add "the" to indicate that we are talking about the people and not the language if there is an ambiguity.
Example:
The Chinese speak ...
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What's with the definite article in "It was in the bleak December"?
In his classic poem which pretty much everyone knows by heart, Edgar Allan Poe writes as follows:
Ah, distinctly I remember
It was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember
Wrought its ...
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Why is an "a" article being used here? I would use "the" instead
The Senate late Thursday passed a House-approved bill to raise the debt ceiling and cap government spending for two years, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk .
https://www.cnbc.com/...
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How many "the"'s are needed in the phrase "the A of the B of the C ..."? [closed]
Here's an example from Wikipedia:
Statement: ... Suppose a function g ... has the set of discontinuity points D_g ...
Proof: By (the) definition of the continuity of the function g(·), ...
(The ...
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Including an article if the following phrase already contains it
For example, when referencing a webpage:
Visit the "The Performers" page to learn about our musical lineup.
In this case, I want to tell someone to visit a webpage entitled "The ...
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"the" with nationality - Brits
I know that we have to use 'the' when it comes to groups of people, for example:
The French are good at cooking.
When nouns and adjectives are the same, we can omit 'the'
Americans are good at ...
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When it necessary to add "the" before Ruby Community
The community of the Ruby language has an issue, one of the main resources is not accessible. So I wrote a message in the GitHub:
Ruby Koans is a real treasure of Ruby Community, best way to get into ...
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Article usage: "in context of"
In a scientific paper,in the sentence "in context of information theory, we consider the problem of measuring X " Is an article needed?: "in the/ a (?) context of the(?) information ...
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Nominalized adjectives or nominalized adjective phrases?
Numerous adjectives can be combined with the. Examples include the poor, the limitless, the miraculous, etc. Such constructions are semantically equivalent to nouns. According to Wikipedia:
A ...
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Uses of definite article before comparative degree [closed]
Here are two sentences from a grammar book:
"He is the stronger of the two."
"Reena is smarter than any other student of her class."
In the first sentence, the definite article (...
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(The) unemployment in the country has fallen recently
I have been recently wondering about the reason why is "the" omitted in such a phrase like the one quoted below.
"The unemployment in the country has fallen recently."
My ...
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Looking to understand definite article use when referring to specific places [closed]
I'm trying to understand why, in certain situations, we sometimes do/don't use the definite article 'the' when referring to proper nouns (in this example, bars from my undergrad).
Specifically:
"...
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Context Defined Nouns (the use of the definite article)
I've been doing a research on articles, trying to create a set of reliable rules for my students and I've completed the major part of it, however, there still remain some inconsistencies with bare ...
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What does "The 300 Light infantry" mean?
Text from Osprey Publishing, the book Saratoga 1777: Turning Point of a Revolution by Brendon Morrissey:
Advance Guard: Col Daniel Morgan
The riflemen had 374 all ranks fit and present out of 578 (...
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If an article should be used before a noun?
Suppose that, in my experiments, I have a number of cubes and a number of spheres. The volumes of cubes and spheres are not fixed. Now, I want to express this feature. I do know that the sentence
The ...
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What is the difference between 'more than a half' and 'more than half' [duplicate]
When shall I place an article before the fraction 'half'?
For example, there are many writings that places 'a' before half in 'more than a half' and others won't.
more than a half
more than half
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Generalization with plural versus with definite article [closed]
I was studying the usage of definite article in Arabic and I realized I am not on firm grounds in English either.
With respect to either grammar or rhetoric, are there nuances between the following ...
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Choose between a and the article in a question without context [closed]
Why we say
How to cross the road?
meanwhile, we also say
How to read a book?
As far as I know, we use "the" when there's some context. For example, I have a car, and I want to paint it, ...
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About the use of definite articles with nouns such as "north, south west..."
Using articles can be confusing sometimes, so when we say "the North pole" it takes the definite article "the " unlike for example "North America" here "the " ...
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Math usage: the affine n-space vs affine n-space [duplicate]
In the book Algebraic Geometry by Robin Hartshorne (and many other publications), he writes
We define affine n-space over a field to be the set [...]
and
Our next objective is to show that ...
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Using definite article in news item headlines [duplicate]
The CNN headline reads:
Queen won’t return to London to appoint new British PM, for first time in her reign
Why the definite article the is omitted in "for first time" and "Queen"...
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When is it appropriate to omit both articles and prepositions together?
I am working on a localisation issue within a project, but I cannot figure out through any of my searches and reference texts if there is a particular set of rules surrounding the omission of articles ...
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Is ‘the’ always necessary in such structures?
For qualitative measures, we have to consider the place of Korean
universities in global rankings, as well as the global rankings of
Korean journals.
Is the ‘the’ necessary in all expressions/phrases ...
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For Nth time or for a/an Nth time
In an English language class at school, I was taught to always use "the" not "a/an" when I want to use an ordinal number, for example, "for the second time in a row" ...
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"run for presidency" or "run for the presidency"
I have a question about "run for presidency"/"run for the presidency"
(in this case, it's about a presidential election)
He will run for the presidency.
He will run for presidency....
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(In)definite articles with abstract concepts
I am always struggling to figure out whether to use a definite or indefinite article with abstract concepts.
See the following example. Positions in question are marked with (the?):
Section X ...
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Usage of articles when the noun is specifically described
In the sentence
We are [a/the] team of six developers working on financial software projects from the USA, Canada, and Australia.
where the word team is described specifically enough so there is ...
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Definite article (common area or the common area)
Someone (guess it was the administrator) put a sign on a wall in my building saying "no smoking in common area", now I wonder if that is correct, shouldn't it be "no smoking in THE ...
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Why can't this noun phrase take 'the' - #the skiing pole
I've been pondering why the following (0-a) cannot take the definite article. Please see 1 through 4. It seems as though when accommodated (by my body and the car in these cases below), the total ...
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Using the definite article before adjectives [closed]
It is usual to use the definite article "the" before an adjective referring to a certain group of people. My question is: can we rewrite the following sentence without "the"?
The ...
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Why has it become preferable to put the definite article in 'Here are the details about…'
Consider the phrases
Here are details about…
Here are the details about…
If you look at google books, both versions exist in edited books written by native speakers. But google NGrams shows that ...
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Question on the use of the definite article
In articles and textbooks about computer science, I often see the definite article used in the following ways.
In final testing, the program is tested at the end of its development process.
One ...
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When do companies named "(The) X Company" take the definite article?
I work for a company called "x company" where x is a noun that represents our key product- something like book, computer or hamburger.
I've been advised to refer to it as the "x company&...
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lacquer finish/a lacquer finish/the lacquer finish [article usage]
I've just read an article about lacquer finish (or should I say a lacquer finish here?), and the use of articles is a bit confusing.
The headline uses the indefinite one, which is kind of clear ...
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the semi-final (singular) meaning the team's advancement level in the tournament [closed]
If you meant to convey that they won their quarter-final game and are now going to play at the semi-final level (in a single-elimination tournament), you would often say 'The team advanced to the semi-...
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Why is it "the pretty nurse", not "a pretty nurse" in the song "Penny lane" by the Beatles?
In the Beatles song "Penny lane" there is such a verse:
Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she's in ...
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Why use the definite article before the nouns that are mentioned for the first time?
In the Wikipedia article on Cloakroom there is the following paragraph:
Attended cloakrooms, or coat checks, are staffed rooms where coats and bags can be stored securely. Typically, a ticket or ...
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"Last but not Least" or "The last but not the least"?
Is it because, in most cases, we use "last but not least" after mentioning some items that don't add "The" to the phrase? or is it just an accepted exception? Shouldn't the correct ...
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Shouldn't there be the definite article at the beginning of the First Amendment to the US Constitution? [duplicate]
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the ...
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The purpose of definite articles in the extract [closed]
Can anyone explain me the usage of articles in this extract?
When students in the UK were asked by a national newspaper what kind of college they would like to go to, they agreed that one of the most ...
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Why do we put the in this example?
Nearly $300 billion in foreign aid was spent by the U.S. Government between the years 2013 and 2018 (source: Forbes)
I seriously don't know why we put "the years" in the sentence. More ...
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