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Sure, but presume neither the speaker nor the recipient owns a cat. Without an obvious context ("the cat"? what cats could we both know of?), it's not entirely
by pluma 12y ago
Sure, but presume neither the speaker nor the recipient owns a cat. Without an obvious context ("the cat"? what cats could we both know of?), it's not entirely clear.
Saying "the" instead of "a" generally assumes a context that has either been established before during the conversation or outside of it.
Imagine a stranger telling you they "accidentally killed the koala". You'd be confused. Not that strangers telling you about exotic animals they accidentally killed wouldn't be confusing enough.
- pbhjpbhj 12y agoI wasn't disagreeing I was just adding extra depth to what you said. Yes it's not entirely clear language, that's why it's colloquialism rather than being adopted as proper speech/writing. Like you say "the item" means there should be an antecedent [previous mention]. If someone said they'd "killed the koala" I'd assume it was a euphemism for something!!