3 ms·

Try making it with "a" - if thing can be "a thing" then it could be "the thing" but if it can't be "a thing" it definitely can't be "the thing" either.

• m12k 12d ago
  Right on the money!
  • geocar 12d ago
    In the 16th century, being "on the money" meant an arrow or a dart being on (or near) a specific physical coin (i.e. the money), like in a tossing or shooting bar-bet. Being on merely a money (or some money) would likely not be as impressive in said circumstances, and so whilst being grammatically possible in English, it shouldn't seem so likely the sort of thing anyone would ever have had to say.
• rom1v 12d ago
  "I play the piano" or "I play piano"?
  • ad133 12d ago
    Weirdly, as an en_GB native, neither of these seems wrong to me. I suspect one is British and one is American, and too much TV has driven me to accept the American one.
    • jacobolus 12d ago
      Both of these are common in the US. It doesn't seem like there's any strong regional connection. Judging from a search, "play the piano" is about 5 times as common as "play piano", but there are also many sources which uses both versions in close proximity, apparently interchangeably.
  • geocar 12d ago
    With context these can mean different things. You might also play a piano, or hire either a player piano, or a piano player. If you are answering which instrument you play, it's the former, but if we are talking the profession it's the latter, because you don't say then that you play a piano.
  • landdate 12d ago
    "i play piano" - i know how to play piano "i play the piano" - i am playing the piano that is just my intuition as native english speaker, but the former cojld also mean the latter and i have seen it used like such before.
• deleted 12d ago
  [deleted]