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>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 k

by SilasX 6d 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 6d 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.
- SilasX 6d ago
  Third time: I'm not imposing some kind of prescriptivism, and I know that it's common. You're not bringing in any new information here. I'm saying it deviates from the usual pattern of using "the" when the noun has definiteness. To repeat another part of my initial post, it's like the use of "the" in "the bigger they are, the harder they fall". It's clearly a different usage/meaning/sense of "the" -- in fact, most other languages use a different word for that sense. (German uses je ... desto.) It would be very dubious to explain all uses of "the" as "oh its when the noun has definiteness". It wouldn't cover that case, and it wouldn't cover (the typical use of) "I went to the store".
  - jacobolus 6d ago
    I am agreeing with you that "the" in "I went to the store" does not necessarily imply any specific instance of the noun, and is a grammatically distinct use of the word. Some of the statements (by other people) in this conversation are wrong, based on applying a school-style oversimplified explanation that doesn't really match English usage.
lawsthro0532 5d ago
Usually, the mall, the store, the gas station in a story are habitual known places for the people telling you these stories, and they are implying that. In other cases, it is being used as an idiom that imply something habitual, common, run of the mill.
- SilasX 5d ago
  Again, they do it even when those prerequisites don’t hold. And your second sentence is agreeing that it’s a different usage than the normal definiteness.

by SilasX 6d ago

jacobolus 6d 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.

SilasX 6d ago
Third time: I'm not imposing some kind of prescriptivism, and I know that it's common. You're not bringing in any new information here. I'm saying it deviates from the usual pattern of using "the" when the noun has definiteness. To repeat another part of my initial post, it's like the use of "the" in "the bigger they are, the harder they fall". It's clearly a different usage/meaning/sense of "the" -- in fact, most other languages use a different word for that sense. (German uses je ... desto.) It would be very dubious to explain all uses of "the" as "oh its when the noun has definiteness". It wouldn't cover that case, and it wouldn't cover (the typical use of) "I went to the store".
- jacobolus 6d ago
  I am agreeing with you that "the" in "I went to the store" does not necessarily imply any specific instance of the noun, and is a grammatically distinct use of the word. Some of the statements (by other people) in this conversation are wrong, based on applying a school-style oversimplified explanation that doesn't really match English usage.

lawsthro0532 5d ago

Usually, the mall, the store, the gas station in a story are habitual known places for the people telling you these stories, and they are implying that. In other cases, it is being used as an idiom that imply something habitual, common, run of the mill.

SilasX 5d ago
Again, they do it even when those prerequisites don’t hold. And your second sentence is agreeing that it’s a different usage than the normal definiteness.