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I'm going to the bank, the shop, the dentist, the pool - I have a regular one in mind and you may well also know which one I mean. I'm going to a bank, a shop,

by rawling 13d ago

I'm going to the bank, the shop, the dentist, the pool - I have a regular one in mind and you may well also know which one I mean. I'm going to a bank, a shop, a dentist - I've found a new one and I may well be about to describe it to you. "A nice evening" - there have been ones before, there hopefully will be again, this was one of them.

layer8 13d ago
Sure, but that’s different from “you do/don't care which one”.
- shhsshs 13d ago
  “Care” may not be the correct word, but in those examples the difference is whether you are referring to a specific instance, or any instance of a group. When you say “I went to the doctor,” you did in fact go to a specific doctor (or “I will go to the doctor” meaning you will go to one). It would be equally valid to say “I went to a doctor”, it’s just less specific.
  - necovek 13d ago
    I believe it is food for thought — would one ever say "this was the nice evening"? Here it only sounds OK if you make the adjective stronger ("this was the nicest evening", though you'd probably avoid "nice" in this case and go with "best", "most amazing"...), or drop the adjective altogether ("this was the evening"). So nuance is that you might have many nice evenings, with this being one of — but what if you do not, and all are actually terrible except for this one? I guess with proper pronounciation of "THE nice", it can still work (we already talked about nice evenings and not-nice ones, so it'd be "this was the nice one"), but it'd be pretty awkward.
    - xigoi 13d ago
      “At the start of the year, my crystal ball told me that all my evenings this year are going to be bad except for one. This was the nice evening.”
      - necovek 13d ago
        Yes, exactly the example I put in ("the one") — thanks for sharing it and showing it might not even be awkward!
    - nkrisc 13d ago
      Absent any context, “the nice evening” sounds strange because no one really expects there to be only one nice evening. However it can makes sense if the surrounding context supports the idea of only one nice evening. Grammar rules are generally about the surrounding context which allow us to leave out superfluous or repeated information and still be understood. Things sound strange when that missing information can’t be deduced from context.
    - shhsshs 13d ago
      One could imagine a very stressful weekend (two evenings), one of which was “the rough evening” and the other was “the nice evening”.
SilasX 13d ago
Well, on that note: the construction “I went to the store” has always felt wrong to me as a native speaker. People say it even when that store lacks definiteness in context (ie the listener has no reason to know which one you mean). At the very least, it counts as a separate usage of “the” that doesn’t follow the usual pattern, like when you say “the bigger they are, the harder they fall”. Edit: Here's a frustrating HN thread where someone tried to claim it makes sense, but it turned out his argument hinged on "well obviously all native English speakers regularly go to some store, right?" Screw the homebound. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32620015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32620015
- deleted 13d ago
  [deleted]
- lawsthro0532 13d ago
  Looking at: https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/english-language/definite-article/ https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/english-language/definite... I think the usage falls into this group: "The first group consists of nouns which refer to shared knowledge of the situation or context...", When you're talking to people you live with it is true that they know which store you are going to. Friends and neighbours would have also have known up to fairly recently, when people still mostly walked for groceries and such to the few small stores nearby and made friends with people who lived close. So, I'd say it's a bit of a colloquial hold over from walking times and construction taking a listener into confidence.
  - SilasX 13d ago
    >When you're talking to people you live with it is true that they know which store you are going to. But again, people use this even when I have no reason to know which store they went to. I’m not necessarily saying they should stop doing this, but it’s clearly not the usual kind of definiteness implied but the use of “the”.
    - jacobolus 13d ago
      It is common for someone to say, for instance, "I need to go to the store" even if they don't have any particular store in mind. A prescriptivist pedant might insist that this is incorrect, and they should instead say "I need to go to a store", but in my judgment as a native speaker, the version with "the" is more idiomatic, and the version with "a" sounds stilted.
thaumasiotes 13d ago
> I'm going to the bank, the shop, the dentist, the pool - I have a regular one in mind and you may well also know which one I mean. Well, that would work for many uses of the, but it's definitely not a correct explanation here. If I have no idea where the bank is, I'll still describe myself as going to "the bank". I could tell you that "I'm going to the bank", go out and get in my car, and then look up where a convenient bank is. This has to be viewed as idiomatic, or as "the bank" being an abstract task-based location rather than a concrete physical location.
mrheosuper 12d ago
"Do you have any kids ?" "I have the son" sounds odd, even if there is only 1 son on your mind.

by rawling 13d ago

layer8 13d ago

Sure, but that’s different from “you do/don't care which one”.

shhsshs 13d ago
“Care” may not be the correct word, but in those examples the difference is whether you are referring to a specific instance, or any instance of a group. When you say “I went to the doctor,” you did in fact go to a specific doctor (or “I will go to the doctor” meaning you will go to one). It would be equally valid to say “I went to a doctor”, it’s just less specific.
- necovek 13d ago
  I believe it is food for thought — would one ever say "this was the nice evening"? Here it only sounds OK if you make the adjective stronger ("this was the nicest evening", though you'd probably avoid "nice" in this case and go with "best", "most amazing"...), or drop the adjective altogether ("this was the evening"). So nuance is that you might have many nice evenings, with this being one of — but what if you do not, and all are actually terrible except for this one? I guess with proper pronounciation of "THE nice", it can still work (we already talked about nice evenings and not-nice ones, so it'd be "this was the nice one"), but it'd be pretty awkward.
  - xigoi 13d ago
    “At the start of the year, my crystal ball told me that all my evenings this year are going to be bad except for one. This was the nice evening.”
    - necovek 13d ago
      Yes, exactly the example I put in ("the one") — thanks for sharing it and showing it might not even be awkward!
  - nkrisc 13d ago
    Absent any context, “the nice evening” sounds strange because no one really expects there to be only one nice evening. However it can makes sense if the surrounding context supports the idea of only one nice evening. Grammar rules are generally about the surrounding context which allow us to leave out superfluous or repeated information and still be understood. Things sound strange when that missing information can’t be deduced from context.
  - shhsshs 13d ago
    One could imagine a very stressful weekend (two evenings), one of which was “the rough evening” and the other was “the nice evening”.

SilasX 13d ago

Well, on that note: the construction “I went to the store” has always felt wrong to me as a native speaker. People say it even when that store lacks definiteness in context (ie the listener has no reason to know which one you mean). At the very least, it counts as a separate usage of “the” that doesn’t follow the usual pattern, like when you say “the bigger they are, the harder they fall”. Edit: Here's a frustrating HN thread where someone tried to claim it makes sense, but it turned out his argument hinged on "well obviously all native English speakers regularly go to some store, right?" Screw the homebound. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32620015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32620015

deleted 13d ago
[deleted]
lawsthro0532 13d ago
Looking at: https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/english-language/definite-article/ https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/english-language/definite... I think the usage falls into this group: "The first group consists of nouns which refer to shared knowledge of the situation or context...", When you're talking to people you live with it is true that they know which store you are going to. Friends and neighbours would have also have known up to fairly recently, when people still mostly walked for groceries and such to the few small stores nearby and made friends with people who lived close. So, I'd say it's a bit of a colloquial hold over from walking times and construction taking a listener into confidence.
- SilasX 13d ago
  >When you're talking to people you live with it is true that they know which store you are going to. But again, people use this even when I have no reason to know which store they went to. I’m not necessarily saying they should stop doing this, but it’s clearly not the usual kind of definiteness implied but the use of “the”.
  - jacobolus 13d ago
    It is common for someone to say, for instance, "I need to go to the store" even if they don't have any particular store in mind. A prescriptivist pedant might insist that this is incorrect, and they should instead say "I need to go to a store", but in my judgment as a native speaker, the version with "the" is more idiomatic, and the version with "a" sounds stilted.

thaumasiotes 13d ago

> I'm going to the bank, the shop, the dentist, the pool - I have a regular one in mind and you may well also know which one I mean. Well, that would work for many uses of the, but it's definitely not a correct explanation here. If I have no idea where the bank is, I'll still describe myself as going to "the bank". I could tell you that "I'm going to the bank", go out and get in my car, and then look up where a convenient bank is. This has to be viewed as idiomatic, or as "the bank" being an abstract task-based location rather than a concrete physical location.

mrheosuper 12d ago

"Do you have any kids ?" "I have the son" sounds odd, even if there is only 1 son on your mind.