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Questions tagged [articles]

Use this tag for questions about the usage of articles (e.g. a, an, and the).

A, and an are indefinite articles, and the is a definite article. They are used to indicate the type of reference being made to an object.
Usually a is used when referring to someone or something for the first time in a text or conversation, while the is used to denote one or more people, or things already mentioned, or assumed to be common knowledge.

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Is "flu" the only disease usually accompanied with "the"?

Is "flu" the only disease usually accompanied with "the"? From what I understand, you don't usually use "the" with diseases / illnesses / disorders ("have Alzheimer's / diarrhea / claustrophobia / dyslexia, etc." not "have the..."), but it's…
Vun-Hugh Vaw
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Omitting article “the” in front of plural nouns

I'm helping someone learn English (second language), and I'm having trouble explaining when to use the and when not to. For example: Students learn better when teachers are passionate about teaching. versus The students learn better when the…
MPelletier
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Why do we say ‘I have "a" husband (wife)?

Though it may sound a very primitive question to native English speakers, the use of ‘article’ is always the greatest headache to me because we don’t have this part of speech in our language system (I don’t think Chinese language has it…
Yoichi Oishi
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In "Are you staff?" does "staff" need to be preceded with an article?

Is it appropriate to say "Are you staff?" when asking someone if they are a staff member, or do you need to say "a staff"? This is regardless of any slang possibly incurred through either spoken, or written English. Are you staff? Are you a…
Abhishek
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Why is the indefinite article used in "as a last resort"?

Someone asked me this question today and I didn't really know how to answer the question. When something is last, the definite article should precede it because there's only one last place.
CDM
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Is it correct to say "via a"?

Is it considered proper English to say something like this? I called her via a telephone. Or should the indefinite article be omitted entirely? I called her via telephone. If the indefinite article is to be omitted, are there any cases in which…
user11550
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When do you say "Earth" and when "The Earth"?

I'm reading the page on Wikipeda: Earth [...] is the third planet from the Sun[...] The Earth's human population is [...] Then the University of Tennessee's page The Earth is certainly the most familiar planet [...] Apollo 11 shot of Earth Galileo…
v010dya
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Does absence of articles in computer-related sentences look natural?

I'm a non-native speaker (actually from Russia) and for us the articles (a, an, the) came as a thing that we just have to adopt. We do not have not similar constructions in Russian. Menus I see in programs, and other short phrases related to…
Maksee
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Why do people support/oppose the death penalty (with article), but oppose/support abortion (no article)

Why is the article the used when talking about the death penalty, but isn't used when discussing abortion?
v010dya
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"Welcome to Q&A for ..." or "Welcome to a Q&A site for ..."?

There's a question on Meta Stack Overflow about whether the current text for the welcome banner is grammatically correct. It currently reads: Welcome to Q&A for [site description] Apparently, a lot of people consider that grammatically incorrect…
John
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When to say "a proof", "the proof" and just "proof"?

My friend asked to check his work, and he had written: I think Asimov is proof that being prolific is at least as valuable as being talented. He writes simply is proof. Did he write correctly without an article? In which case would one write is a…
bodacydo
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Articles in a list

I saw a bear, a lion and a donkey. Is the usage of the article a necessary before each word in a list like this? Biggs set out Monday morning for one of his usual hiking and gold-panning trips near Whiskey Flats when he came across a mother …
domino
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Why is “a” used here: “When a Mr. Andrews, the butler...”?

I posted a question several days ago about the significance of using “a,” in the sentence of Jeffery Archer’s novel, “False Impression” - “General Harry Wentworth was commanding his left flank when a defeated Napoleon rode off the battle field and…
Yoichi Oishi
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ABC, NBC vs. the BBC and the ABC

I am writing a style guide at my company, and for the life of me, I can't explain why U.S. broadcasters "ABC" and "NBC" seem to need no article as a noun, while the U.K. broadcaster "BBC" always gets one. And when I think about the Australian…
Jeff in Tokyo
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The definite article implying the generic idea of something

I know that the definite article "the" can be used to mean a generic idea of something as in "the lion is the king of the animals." In this sentence, the in "the lion" is used to imply the general image of lions, so not specifying a particular lion.…
Huidong Im
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