1

I was reading my previous question last night:
Should you use present or past tense when telling people about your work experience?

And I saw Jay write this:

You could have experience "in a bakery", as opposed to "in bakery"

I would like to know whether these two sentences have different meaning:

You could have experience "in a bakery"

You could have experience "in bakery".

if yes, could you tell me why please?

kitty
  • 5,585
  • 29
  • 79
  • 123
  • 2
    You will never now hear a person say "You could have experience in bakery". it's archaic already. – SovereignSun May 26 '17 at 14:02
  • 2
    You have baking experience from working in a bakery. But if you did their financial accounting, say, and have no hands-on experience making bread and cakes, then we wouldn't say that you had "baking experience". Then you would have some "bakery experience". You know how a bakery operates but might not know how to bake a cake. – TimR May 26 '17 at 15:20

1 Answers1

1

The difference is that the noun "bakery" has an out-dated definition which means "the art of baking" and "a bakery" is a place where baking is done, where people cook bread or other things.

  • You could have experience "in a bakery" means in a place where they bake. a building.
  • You could have experience "in bakery" means in the science of baking.
SovereignSun
  • 25,028
  • 40
  • 146
  • 271
  • 3
    That said, you could use a gerund: You could have experience in baking. And you could use the original construct with words that are still in use: You could have experience in medicine. – J.R. May 26 '17 at 14:56