Musicgold  +  948918 Wed, 21 Oct 09 01:40 PM Hi, The following sentence is from a press article. Shouldn't there be a 'the' before 'business class'? Or is the author treating 'business class' as a noun? 'Without spending a nickel to spruce up the interior, WestJet will be able to create a "premium economy" section while sticking to its casual corporate culture, which shuns business class.' Thanks, MG. Musicgold Joined on Sat, Jul 14 2007 Full Member 279 Articles, Nouns, Sentences, Business, Careers

	Cool Breeze  +  948931 Wed, 21 Oct 09 01:54 PM No doubt the author is treating business class as a noun; after all, it is a noun! He has omitted the article because he thinks of it as a proper noun. Proper nouns are capitalized, and Business Class would look better to my eye. CB Cool Breeze Joined on Fri, Apr 7 2006 Senior Member 3,979 "I hope you'll all live to be 150 years old - and the last voice you hear is mine!" Frank Sinatra on stage in Oslo, Norway, 28 September 1991 Articles, Nouns, Business, Careers

	Ivanhr  +  948935 Wed, 21 Oct 09 02:02 PM Hi, here's my explanation which is not necessarily correct 'Business class' as used here is an uncountable noun phrase (the noun class is normally countable) and is also used in the most general sense (shuns bussines class = avoid buiseness class in favor of economy class) Uncountable noun phrases used generally take no article     Ivanhr Joined on Fri, Oct 2 2009 Full Member 199 Articles, Nouns, Noun Phrases, Uncountable Nouns, Phrases, Business, Careers

	Musicgold  +  948982 Wed, 21 Oct 09 03:25 PM Thanks guys. What if I consider a class as a category and write the sentence as given below? Does that change the meaning of the sentence? 'Without spending a nickel to spruce up the interior, WestJet will be able to create a "premium economy" section while sticking to its casual corporate culture, which shuns the business class.' Musicgold Articles, Sentences, Business, Careers

	Ivanhr  +  949149 Wed, 21 Oct 09 06:59 PM This structure (the + singular countable noun) can be used to generalize but is mainly used with animals, plants, things and even certain groups of people.   1. The computer has changed the way we do business.   2. The mountain lion is a member of the  Felidae family.   3. The average American speaks two languages.   Normally uncountable nouns are not used in this way and even countable nouns which are abstract and represent concepts rather than things which are tangible cannot be used in this way. In conclusion, 'the business class' would be incorrect, at least in my opinion.  Ivanhr Articles, Nouns, Uncountable Nouns, Countable Nouns, Plants, Business, Countries, United States, American, Careers, Languages

	dimsumexpress  +  949174 Wed, 21 Oct 09 07:30 PM This is abviously a reference made to the airline industry and the improved comfort WestJet offers to the public. I think the creation of the "premium economy" class is compared to "the business class" found in other airlines as the industry standard. Based on that approach, I would use "the" before business class. I may be wrong!   dimsumexpress Joined on Mon, Oct 12 2009 Full Member 295 Articles, References, Business, Career, Careers