My Article Problem. And Yours.

English is a strange language in so many ways. Spelling, of course. Tenses – weird. Pronunciation – unfathomable.

But some of the bewildering things that we native speakers rarely think about are articles. I am talking about the definite and indefinite kind.  Those little words “the” and “a,” the latter of which is sometimes “an.” Wha?

Now admittedly (and thankfully) our articles don’t have gender as they do in say, German.  What a morass that would be today! It’s confusing enough that our pronouns have gender. But I digress.

Here is what I am talking about.

In a restaurant we say, “I’ll have the salmon” when what we mean is I’ll have a salmon (from the presumably many in the kitchen.) It should be indefinite but we use the definite.

But then we say, I’ll have a glass of red wine or I’ll have a(n) IPA. Seems correct but also inconsistent.

Americans say, “Sally is in the hospital.” (speedy recovery, Sally!), which seems right since he, she, they (I don’t know what pronouns Sally prefers) is in a particular hospital. But the Brits say, “Sally is in hospital.” dropping the article entirely. But only in the case of hospital. They don’t say, “Nigel is in coffee shop.”

In New York City the four of the Boroughs are always referenced without articles as one might expect for place names. “I was born in Queens.” But my mother was born in the Bronx.

You may have never noticed this, but Apple has strict rules for its executives about how they use articles with regard to certain products at events or when speaking in public. At the annual September event where they roll out new products, Tim Cook will say, “Now let’s talk about iPhone.” or “We want to announce some exciting changes to Apple Watch.” But Tim will say “We have some incredible updates to the Mac.” They even had an event themed, “Back to the Mac” a few years ago.

How about, “Translated from the Russian.” As if “Translated from Russian” would be unclear exactly which Russian you meant?

I bet you can come up with some more examples. I don’t know what to make of this articular jumble. I am just a humble English lit major. The nuances and subtleties of grammar are above my pay grade. My task is simply to show these peculiarities to you. Now that I have, you will never be able to not notice them.

You’re welcome.