The inimitable "Matti Lamprhey" (Email Removed) stated one day Oh, no, no. "Winter has been very mild this year" is perfectly acceptable. I disagree the sentence seems odd without the definite article there. I agree with

Must use "the" in the blank. The sentence refers to a particular instance of the season. Oh, no, no. "Winter has been very mild this year" is perfectly acceptable. I disagree the sentence seems odd without the definite article

Hi John, Thanks for the response. Quote: As for the omission of the article, to my mind it is an implied "a". That's interesting. My previous post was about the defining power of "of" in "a/the/(no article) lack of something" versus

I am trying to explain to someone the role of the indefinite and the definite article before the noun "lack": a lack of, the lack of, lack of. I am no linguist so I decided to collect examples of the usage of "lack", group them according to the

If that's a question, it reveals your ignorance. OK. I'm ignorant. Enlighten me à la is an ellipsis for "à la manière (de)" As "manière" is s.f. (substantive, feminine) it takes the feminine form of the definite article

Hi, you asked Which is the correct usage please: " I have ordered a / an MRI (magnetic resonance scan) and will review the patient following this." Rule: With single letters and groups of letters that are pronounced as individual letters, be

1-I woke up the man sleeping. This is a clumsy and ambiguous sentence. Were YOU sleeping when you woke up the man? The use of the definite article (the) implies that there were a lot of men in the room but only one was sleeping and you woke

Strictly speaking, egotism is using 'I' too much. I've sometimes ... Brits 'Blighter dripped mud all over me best macfarlane.' Hate it when that happens. But it's better than getting milk on your McVitie's, Boofy, old

The inimitable Mike Oliver (Email Removed) stated one day Well, but the part corresponding to "their" would be "the Wilsons'", which isn't a noun phrase. (Of course "the Wilsons" is a noun phrase, but

The other day I explained the difference between definite and indefinite articles to a student, saying that "the" was specific (ex. the dog barked) and "a, an" non-specifc (eg. I want a dog). So, the next day he made a comment like "My car got