Questions tagged [indefinite-articles]
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun.
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Do you use "a" or "an" before acronyms / initialisms?
99% of the time, I'm clear on when I should use "a" versus "an." There's one case, though, where people & references I respect disagree.
Which of the following would you precede with "a" or "an," ...
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When should I use "a" vs "an"?
In the following example, is it appropriate to use a or an as the indefinite article, and why?
He ate __ green apple.
I know that in the case of just "apple", it would be "an apple," but I've ...
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When should I use "a" versus "an" in front of a word beginning with the letter h?
A basic grammar rule is to use an instead of a before a vowel sound. Given that historic is not pronounced with a silent h, I use “a historic”. Is this correct? What about heroic? Should be “It was a ...
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"A/An" preceding a parenthetical statement
When a/an precedes a parenthetical aside (sometimes seen in informal/conversational writing), should the vowel rule depend on the first word in parentheses, or the next word in the "regular" flow of ...
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Are there any simple rules for choosing the definite vs. indefinite (vs. none) article?
I can’t for the life of me figure out where to use a and where to use the — and where there is no article at all. Is there a simple rule of thumb to memorize?
The standard rule you always hear:
“...
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Why can we say 'an American' but not 'a British'?
I am confused with the use of an indefinite article in front of British or Chinese.
To my understanding, we can place an indefinite article in front of any “countable noun”.
So, we can say a cup and ...
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Why is there no plural indefinite article?
The takes either a singular or a plural subject. A/an only takes the singular.
When we pluralize a noun preceded by an indefinite article, we simply drop the article (sometimes replacing it with ...
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Is it "a uniform" or "an uniform"? [duplicate]
On a Physics specification, it says:
6.7 Know how to use two permanent magnets to produce a uniform magnetic field pattern.
Isn't it "produce an uniform magnetic field", or is the existing "...
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Indefinite articles used with plural nouns: It was AN amazing TWO DAYS
The indefinite article a(n), derives from the old English word an meaning "one". Generally this word only occurs in determiner function before noun phrases which are singular. However, there seem to ...
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Why would "an mule" be used instead of "a mule"? [closed]
As generally agreed and as extensively discussed in this question, "an" should be used in place of the more common "a" where the following word begins with a vowel sound.
I have ...
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Why don't we use the indefinite article with 'software'?
Generally, one doesn't use the indefinite article with a noun because it's plural, but sometimes you get nouns where, for some reason, the indefinite article isn't used even though the noun is ...
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Does one use 'a' or 'an' before the word X-Ray?
I was asking this question on Area 51: "How do I tell if an airport scanner is a X-ray scanner?", but I keep wanting to put an 'an' in front of X-ray because it starts with the 'eh' sound.
So is it '...
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"Half an hour" versus "half hour"
I'll be back in half an hour.
I'll be back in half hour.
Which is the correct sentence? Are there any differences between British English and American English?
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Is it supposed to be a HTML or an HTML [duplicate]
I've seen many people who say:
This is a HTML page.
Yet I've also seen many people who say:
This is an HTML page.
Are both usages equally correct?
Or, which is the grammatically correct one?
...
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Which is correct — "a year" or "an year"? [duplicate]
The word year when pronounced starts with a phonetic sound of e which is a vowel sound making it eligible for being preceded by an. Yet, we tend to write a year. Why?
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What article do we use before a symbol? Is it "an @" or "a @"?
I got a question when reading this text:
The name of the decorator should be prepended with an @ symbol.
Should we write "a @ symbol" or "an @ symbol"? As "@" is in fact "at", I would think "an" ...
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A or an XML report? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Do you use “a” or “an” before acronyms?
Does one use 'a' or 'an' before the word 'X-Ray'?
Quite simply, should a sentence read "a XML report" or "an ...
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Is it 'a usual' or 'an usual'? Why? [duplicate]
is it 'a usual' or 'an usual'? 'A usual' sounds more correct in my head ('Today was a usual day.') than 'an usual', but u is a vowel. Which one is correct and why?
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Usage of English definite article when referring to generic word
My mother language does not have articles, so I still struggle to choose when to use the indefinte and definite article. The other day, I learned:
"The dog is an animal" is acceptable.
"The iron is a ...
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Why is it "an yearly"?
In the book The Wealth of Nations, (Adam Smith, 1776), the words an yearly are used. Why was this an exception to the indefinite article rules?
Chapter VI, Book I:
At the rate of ten per cent ...
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When is it correct to use "scissors" as a singular noun?
In the Oxford dictionary website, the following example for scissors is given:
A small suture scissors was used to "fish" for the deeply embedded
hair.
However I find weird that it treats ...
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Indefinite article in the "An [adjective] [number] [plural noun]" construction
I wasn't sure how best to phrase the title of this question.
I'm interested in constructions of the following form:
An estimated 50 people died in the bombing.
'An estimated' could be ...
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Omission of the indefinite article to eliminate ambiguity [duplicate]
love between husband and wife
What is the reason that there is no article (e.g. "love between a husband and a wife") in the above? Has some kind of a rule been identified grammatically when it comes ...
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Can predicative complements not be bare noun phrases in English? That is, are clauses such as “I am student” incorrect?
In Chapter 4 of the book A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar, written by Rodney Huddleston of the University of Queensland and Geoffrey K. Pullum of the University of Edinburgh and published ...
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"You're too clever a man"
You're too clever a man to imagine this.
The above sentence was said by George Galloway, a man of excellent rhetorical skills.
Since he said it, I doubt it's wrong, grammatically. But, I wonder if ...
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"the average person" vs "an average person"
There's a question in a forum I frequent, and I'm trying to decide whether "the average" or "an average" is appropriate in its title.
Let's say the question is:
"Why is the average Canadian more ...
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a cold vs flu / the flu
Have you got a cold?
Have you got flu?
Have you got the flu?
Why can't we say a flu or the cold in the previous examples?
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Are there specific rules to build expressions with or without articles?
In English, there are lots of expressions built using articles like:
at the station
to the cinema
play the piano
have breakfast (no article)
take a bath
take a shower
Are there specific rules or ...
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"What kind of a person" vs. "what kind of person"
I often hear people saying what kind of [singular noun] rather than what kind of a [singular noun].
Are we not supposed to use an article (a) before noun?
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Why did Obama use "a" in "... to hear a King proclaim that ..."
From Obama's second inaugural speech:
We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our ...
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Why no determiner before either 'lunatic' or 'knight' in "He's more lunatic than he is knight"
In the Norton Critical Edition of Don Quijote, ably translated by Burton Raffel, there is a passage in which Sancho Panza is talking about the titular character and he says
...while I am thinking ...
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Why is 'an' used with 'an honour'?
Why is 'an' used with 'an honour'? Isn't 'an' limited to the vowels?
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Why was "a world" used in this sentence of Melville?
I cannot make much sense of a world in the following passage from Moby-Dick:
There’s your law of precedents; there’s your
utility of traditions; there’s the story of your obstinate survival of
old ...
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Indefinite article and people's names
Sometimes, on the internet, particularly in online games, I see people using the indefinite article before someone's name: "I see a Joey" or "I hug a Polly". I know some of these people and I'm ...
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Is it incorrect to write "I rate this book a 3 out of 4 stars?"
I was informed by a new editor that the sentence "I rate this book a 3 out of 4 stars" is incorrect. In the words of the editor - ""A" is wrongly inserted; you have already used "this" as a determiner,...
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From one to another or From one to the other?
Is there a difference if I say "the recipe varies from one cook to the other" or "the recipe varies from one cook to another"?
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Why does English have an indefinite article? [closed]
I've seen many non-native speakers of English not making use of indefinite articles, presumably since their first language did not contain them. Thinking about this, and about the fact that even in ...
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"It is bad practice ..." vs. "It is a bad practice ..."
"At work, it is bad practice to go to lunch early."
"At work, it is a bad practice to go to lunch early."
The noun "practice" is both countable and uncountable. So, could both sentences be ...
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"There is X" vs "There is a/an X"
1: There is a reluctance on the part of European companies to buy from American sources.
2: There is an emphasis on the organic roots of spirituality.
3: There is a tendency to make the ...
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"such a day" or "such day"?
It's such a nice day today!
I'm interested in the usage of the indefinite article. I know this sentence is correct. We use an indefinite article in exclamations with countable nouns.
But the ...
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Unorthodox article placement
In my English class yesterday we looked at the following example:
Monica is such a beautiful woman.
We learned that the above sentence could also be written as:
Monica is so beautiful a woman
...
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How many articles should go in "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"?
On the very first Christmas card it was written as "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year..."
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/christmas-card-sayings-and-phrases.html
In Wiktionary that same ...
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Article in “having (a) hard time”
What's the difference?
I'm having hard time figuring that out
I'm having a hard time figuring that out
According to Google both are used equally often. Does the article change meaning here?
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Why do we use plural for indefinite objects?
Building off another question I answered here, I couldn't justify why exactly we say:
I like to ride bicycles.
Instead of:
I like to ride a bicycle.
(This could be anything: "climb mountains", "...
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Is it correct to say "one out of *a* possible four"?
I am curious if it is correct to say "one out of a possible four".
This is what I found in a publication:
Discrete level (one out of a possible
four), corresponding to a range of
safety ...
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What colour eyes
I've just stumbled on this sentence What colour eyes does she have? in my grammar book. What got me interested in this is the combination of the words colour, eyes with what and without any ...
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Using articles for generalization
I'm learning such difficult part of English grammar as Articles.
So far I've already studied that articles are a mess and full of contadictions.
Right now I'm learning this topic from several sources ...
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"As I am wo/man" in Twelfth Night, II, 2 (Shakespeare): a case of indefinite article omission or no?
Are "As I am man" and "As I am woman" in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, II, 2 examples of indefinite article omission or not?
This question is (e)specially directed towards those familiar with ...
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"The Beach" vs "A restaurant"
When I want to go out to eat, I say:
"let's go to a restaurant,"
but when I want to go play on the sand I say:
"let's go to the beach."
Why is that true? In both cases I'm talking about ...
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