 |
Referral Link: http://www.senserely.com/referral/7777778a
You see, I surely understand the basic difference between undefinite-articles “a” and “an”, and the definite-article “the”; for instance here’s one example: if I talk about cars in general, let say “cars have really made life easier”, compare to the definite form: “the car that just drove over my leg was red” (i.e. it’s one particular car in this case), while my brother also said that another such “rule” is that when you mention some noun the fist time in a sentence, you use undefinite-article, and when you use it for the second, third etc. time, you then use a definite one. And of course, there is also a difference between using articles (either one) or not using an article at all …
In the beginning I’ve started to use definite-article very often (sometimes probably on too much ocassions, or well, not just probably and not just sometimes), and only later I became more “conservative” in its usage. But then just few days ago, I was reminded in comments to my “diary-entry” in my diary on kuro5hin site: http://www.kuro5hin.org that I in fact do not use it enough; please, head on to the user Joe Sixpack’s comment titled “ATTN: Egil”: http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2006/9/7/164647/5744/2#2, then givemegmail111’s “I don’t think they even *have* definite-articles..”: http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2006/9/7/164647/5744/3#3, and finally MichaelCrawford’s “I knew Yuri the Hot Dog Vendor was Russian”: http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2006/9/7/164647/5744/4#4 one, as mentioned, all the three being comments to/in one of my “diary-entries”. Further, you might also want to check out the related “diary-entry” by user MichaelCrawford (who also commented in my diary) titled “The Vancouver Diaries: Yuri the Hot Dog Vendor”: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/9/7/182349/6974.
As an example of the usage of the definite-article I will mention a page on the IMDb site: http://www.imdb.com that that lists some titles of a few “Friends” serie episodes in; in this particular example I am confused as to why it is not “The One with The Ross’s Thing” as in the other episodes’ titles:
“Friends”
- The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion (1997) TV Episode
- The One with Ross’s Thing (1997) TV Episode
- The One with the Screamer (1997) TV Episode
- The One with the Chick and the Duck (1997) TV Episode
- The One with the Tiny T-Shirt (1997) TV Episode
But maybe this is not the best example, since I think I maybe know the reason (because the noun in this case is a person, right ?!), but the original problem lies elsewhere, i.e. the thing is that I’ve seen (on numerous ocassions) native English speakers using undefinite/definite-articles in many “manners” without any “obvious rule”.
P.S. - For another similar English grammar related forum-thread, see the “A few questions in regard to English grammar” thread: http://castlecops.com/p706850-A_few_questions_in_regard_to_E… that I opened back then on CastleCops under “Wordsmith “section.
Ivan Tadej (user: “tayiper”)
Referral Link: http://www.senserely.com/referral/7777778a
Technorati Tags: 
