1 Why do we use no articles with fish and chips or fruit salad but we say an omlelet. 2 when I name what I need to prepare something for example. To prepare fruit salad I need sugar, an apple, a bananam. I use articles before ingredients or prulars right?
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What are prulars? – Kate Bunting Jan 02 '24 at 14:36
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I think you may be confusing mass nouns and plurals. You might say that you need "a tablespoon of sugar" but not "a sugar" because it's a mass noun. I think you're also confusing mass nouns with general vs particularized nouns: "Fruit salad is delicious," vs "I'll have the fruit salad." Because there are multiple areas of confusion, it might be difficult to get a good answer to this question. – YonKuma Jan 02 '24 at 14:44
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1Does this answer your question? Zero article before "advice", "fish and chips", "lunch" – ColleenV Jan 02 '24 at 15:05
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We often leave out the article when referring to the constituents of a meal. A serving of fish and chips consists of a portion of the flesh of a fish (not a whole fish) and a number of chips, chicken and rice is a portion of chicken meat (not a whole bird). We sometimes say I had pie and chips even when it was a whole individual pie, but usually when the main feature of the meal is an individual item, we say an omelette, a lamb chop etc.
We might say "I'm making a fruit salad for the party tonight", meaning the whole dish - but a partygoer might say "I'll have some fruit salad", thinking of it more as a 'substance'.
As for ingredients, you might say "I need an apple, a peach and a banana", but when they are cut up "The fruit salad contains apple, peach and banana".
Kate Bunting
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