The Virgin Mary or Virgin Mary

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Tidus

#298912 Wed, 29 Nov 06 04:38 PM

No. Pray to God is correct. Pray for the God is incorrect.

Tidus

Joined on Mon, Nov 27 2006

England

Full Member (360)

Grammar Geek

#298913 Wed, 29 Nov 06 04:38 PM

No, you were right the first time - you pray to God.

But you pray to THE God of all creation, or THE God of our fathers. When you add a description, you use "the."

You should pray to Mary... you should pray to the Virgin Mary.

(Grammatically speaking. I don't mean to tell you whom to really pray to.)

Grammar Geek

Joined on Tue, Jan 10 2006

Pennsylvania, USA

Veteran Member (15,590)

Barbara, who answers in American English.

Whom

Grodada

#298980 Wed, 29 Nov 06 09:05 PM

One possible explanation to the presence of the determiner THE may be that "the Virgin Mary" is in fact an elliptic form of "the virgin called Mary" (or even "the virgin who is called Mary").
If we accept the idea of an ellipsis, the term "virgin" is thus a substantive in the context and that substantive is modified by the following relative clause, which explains the presence of the determiner THE.
I am not a native speaker so could someone tell me if the hypothetical original form ("the virgin who is called Mary") seems plausible ?

Thanks

Grodada

Joined on Fri, Nov 24 2006

New Member (18)

Clauses, Determiners

Rex

#299003 Wed, 29 Nov 06 10:39 PM

I presume it would be fine to say both of the following:

1. You can pray to God.
2. You can pray for God.

Rex

Joined on Wed, Jul 28 2004

Full Member (358)

Resume

Grammar Geek

#299071 Thu, 30 Nov 06 03:48 AM

You can pray for God to DO something. Every night, I pray for God to keep my family safe, for example.

You can can also pray for someone else when you mean that your prayers are for the benefit of this person/these people. You can pray for a friend who is sick, for example, for for the world's poor,

But not just "You can pray for God" all by itself - unless you think God needs praying for.

Grammar Geek

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