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Remind me when you "see a sun rising in the morning" next time. Using an indefinite article here is noticed by the reader and will pose the question "Oh, is the
by shele 7y ago
Remind me when you "see a sun rising in the morning" next time. Using an indefinite article here is noticed by the reader and will pose the question "Oh, is there one more?". In language rules are sometimes not as absolute as "all definite articles can also be indefinite".
- afiori 7y agoThis is not a proper comparison, as the relevant property is not of something being the only member of a category, but of being the already mentioned one. For the sun we suppose the person speaking knows of THE Sun. For the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy we don't. This can be easily shown as "The Black Hole Threw a Star Out of the Milky Way Galaxy" is clearly misusing the definite article.
- ncallaway 7y ago"The Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way Threw a Star Out of the Galaxy" would probably be an alternate way to write the headline using the definite article. Agree that _just_ an article swap leaves the headline worse off.
- StuffedParrot 7y agoOdd for sure, but not wrong. Anyway there’s only one sun and many black holes.