why is that?

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Believer

#335141 Sat, 03 Mar 07 03:24 AM

Hi,

I was reading a book named 'The Purpose Driven Life' by Rick Warren and in the Day 4 reading, under the heading of 'Made to Last Forever', it started like this:

This life is not all there is.

Life on earth is just the dress rehearsal before the real production. You will spend far more time on the other side fo death -- in eternity -- than you will here. Earth is the staging area, the preschool, the tryout for your life in eternity. It is the practice workout before the actual game; the warm-up lap before the race begins.

I think the reason why 'thes' are there is because Mr. Warren is making his points in a general way using nouns with a definite noun 'the' to cover those in a general way, but this explanation of mine doesn't seem to hold the water when the test time comes. Do you have a better explanation or the right explanation as the case might be?

Believer

Joined on Mon, Jan 2 2006

Contributing Member (1,969)

Nouns

Philip

#335145 Sat, 03 Mar 07 03:29 AM

Believer wrote:

Hi,

I was reading a book named 'The Purpose Driven Life' by Rick Warren and in the Day 4 reading, under the heading of 'Made to Last Forever', it started like this:

This life is not all there is.

Life on earth is just the dress rehearsal before the real production. You will spend far more time on the other side fo death -- in eternity -- than you will here. Earth is the staging area, the preschool, the tryout for your life in eternity. It is the practice workout before the actual game; the warm-up lap before the race begins.

I think the reason why 'thes' are there is because Mr. Warren is making his points in a general way using nouns with a definite noun 'the' to cover those in a general way, but this explanation of mine doesn't seem to hold the water when the test time comes. Do you have a better explanation or the right explanation as the case might be?

I think he's using "the" in a specific sense. Not "a", which would make the situation further removed from the situation.

Philip

Joined on Thu, Jun 23 2005

USA Pacific Northwest (Seattle)

Veteran Member (6,283)

At reise er at leve! - H. C. Andersen

Nouns

nona the brit

#335219 Sat, 03 Mar 07 11:27 AM

He is being specific. This is a Christian book. He really does believe that this life is merely the less important stage before the really important after-life.

nona the brit

Joined on Wed, Sep 22 2004

England

Veteran Member (11,438)

The name says it all.

Believer

#336142 Tue, 06 Mar 07 12:52 AM

Thank you, Philip.

Where do you think 'a specific sense' is originated from?

As vague as it seems as to me, what Nona said "He really does believe that this life is merely the less important stage before the really important after-life."??

The mere fact that he believes in that is enough to warrant the use of 'thes' in all those place?

Believer

Philip

#336147 Tue, 06 Mar 07 01:31 AM

Believer wrote:

Thank you, Philip.

Where do you think 'a specific sense' is originated from?

As vague as it seems as to me, what Nona said "He really does believe that this life is merely the less important stage before the really important after-life."??

The mere fact that he believes in that is enough to warrant the use of 'thes' in all those place?

I think Nona has explained it well. You need to accept the starting point of the author, regarless of how much or little you may disagree with his basic thesis. I hope this helps.

Philip

Believer

#336532 Wed, 07 Mar 07 08:09 AM

Thank you, Philip and Nona.

Basically I don't have much disagreement with his point of assertion. I am curious why he used the articles as he did when normally an article 'a' would be good for all those places underlined.

Then I thought he might be doing it (I mean 'putting the article 'thes' in all the places underlined) 1)because he is doing the sort of defining (similar to definitions in a dictionary). He could be using 'thes' 2) because he thinks he is talking straight to you like when you are conversing across from each other.

Ex for case 1:

Earth is the staging area. (An watermelon is a big round fruit that has a lot of fluid.(I mae this up) -- Of course, 'Earth' seems to be uncountable and the 'watermelon' is countable.

Mulling over this, I feel the FIRST case as shown above seems more credible. What do you think?

(Note: There was a minor typo in the original quotation and it should be 'of' not 'fo' before the word 'death'.)

Believer

Articles

nona the brit

#336602 Wed, 07 Mar 07 01:04 PM

If he'd used 'a' then he would be saying that there are other lives, other earths, other staging areas etc. This is not what he believes. As far as he (and probably most other people) is concerned, this is the one and only.

nona the brit