the car door...

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Jacek From Kwidzyn (Pomesania)

#166093 Sun, 04 Dec 05 06:25 PM

Hello all volounteer teachers!

I have found in many sources I could get that the only possible way of combining together 'door' and 'car' is "the door car"...
We are using in such cases the definite article even though we do not exactly know which one of the , let's say, four doors has to be meant: the front one on the left.. or maybe on the right etc..

Does it sound bad if we tell 'a car door", when we do not want to specify??
e.g.
By coupling the plunger arm to the existing rod within the car door which moves the door lock mechanism....

Thank you in advance to all willing to share their knowledge on this amazing web-forum.....

Jacek,

Jacek From Kwidzyn (Pomesania)

Joined on Sat, Aug 20 2005

Poland

New Member (27)

rishonly

#166104 Sun, 04 Dec 05 06:54 PM

Hi Jacek,

You mentioned:"I could get that the only possible way of combining together 'door' and 'car' is "the door car". Depending upon the context, we can say 'car door' or '...door car'.

For example,

The car door was damaged by an accident (car + door)

Nissan Altima is a four-door car (door + car)

rishonly

Joined on Sat, Mar 5 2005

KUMBAKONAM,INDIA

Contributing Member (1,781)

Regards, Krish

Jacek From Kwidzyn (Pomesania)

#166124 Sun, 04 Dec 05 08:06 PM

hi Rishonly,
thank you for your reply.
You are right about this you had written, of course.

I know there is a combination : noun attribute + noun eg
a) a horse race /horse : attribute
b) a race horse / race : attribute
...but I did not mean this when writing my previous post...

To put it another way, I just had asked why one cannot say "a car door" if no specific of the four doors is meant.
I did not found such a sentence on the Internet where the expression " a car door" had been used.
Will a native English speaker say:
1) A car door had not been locked and the car allarm went off.
Note: before the car allarm it seams to me very clear to use "the" since there is only one car alarm in this car (at least so can we assume).
or rather this sentence will be better for him/her?
2) The car door had not been locked and the car alarm went off.

best regards
Jacek

Jacek From Kwidzyn (Pomesania)

Expressions, Nouns, Regards

Clive

#166152 Sun, 04 Dec 05 09:49 PM

Hi,

I have found in many sources I could get that the only possible way of combining together 'door' and 'car' is "the door car"... There's no such thing as a 'door car'. I think you mean a 'car door'.

By coupling the plunger arm to the existing rod within the car door which moves the door lock mechanism.... When we are describing a process or mechanism like this, we often, but not always, use definite articles. I guess it's because we have begun by saying we are going to describe a locking mechanism for a car door. Now we can be specific in the description that follows.

I hope this answers your question. If not, please write again.

Best wishes, Clive

Clive

Joined on Thu, Oct 28 2004

Canada

Veteran Member (20,461)

El tango argentino es un pensamiento triste que se puede bailar (The tango argentino is a sad thought which can be danced) Enrique Santos Discépolo

Articles, Definite articles

rishonly

#166159 Sun, 04 Dec 05 10:00 PM

Hi Jacek,

To me, the second sentence seems better but the natives can explain more on this. The first half of the first sentence--"A car door had not been locked"-- uses an indefinite article "A" and doesn't refer any specific car or car door,but the second half of the sentence uses a definite article "The" and refers a specifc car alarm. That makes the sentence a bit odd, in my opinion.

Besides, If you don't want to mention a specific door, then you can write the sentence as --One of the car doors was not locked ,and the car alarm went off.