a, an, the and the zero article

Article mistakes go both ways. An extra word appears when the goes in front of a word that should carry no determiner at all (a determiner is an article or a word such as this, my, some that stands in front of a noun and says which one or how much), or when a goes in front of a noun that cannot be counted. The opposite mistake, a missing a/an where one is required, comes from Russian: Russian has no articles, and next to у меня есть машина the English I have car looks like a finished sentence. In your own writing you choose an article in almost every line.

The answers a question the reader has to be able to answer: which one? A noun that names a concept in general has no answer, because there is no particular one to point at. Nothing in the shape of the sentence tells you this. In a story about someone's garden, the privacy and the gate are built the same way, but the gate of that garden is something you can point at, and privacy in general is not.

Two uses of the that look the same

Two editing lines from a story about a rooftop garden. A line may carry one extra word: strike it, or leave the line clean.

The difference is not whether the stands in front of a noun, because it does in both cases. The difference is whether the reader, arriving at that word, can already say which garden, which gate, which spirit is meant. With the rooftop garden she can; with the community spirit she cannot, because that is community spirit as such, not the spirit of one particular place.

The rule and the table

The three decisions do not all look at the same property. the turns on one question, whether the reader can identify the thing, and it works for every kind of noun: the advice she gave, the cars outside. a/an and nothing turn on a second property, whether the noun is countable. Countable things can be counted (one book, two books), uncountable ones cannot (advice, information). Only a countable singular takes a/an, and outside fixed idioms such as by car a countable singular never stands bare. The Russian у меня есть машина asks for no article, and the English sentence is incomplete without one: I have a car, not I have car; she lost an umbrella, not she lost umbrella. Countability is worth checking rather than feeling, because the line runs through places you would not expect: advice, information, furniture, news and luggage are all uncountable in English and all name things you could obviously count one by one. Words like some, any, much, many are not articles but quantity determiners, and they live where countable meets uncountable. So there are three decisions and four forms: a and an are one decision, split by sound.

Countability, some, any and the other determiners: where the line runs between what takes a/an and what does not

The same article in the open cloze and in writing

Open cloze. One word goes in.

Writing. A paragraph from a blog comment.

The pair "first mention with a, repeat with the" works for a countable singular that the reader meets for the first time and cannot yet identify: a boiler, then the boiler. If the thing can be identified at once, the comes with the very first mention. Nobody in that comment has named the landlord before, but a rented flat has one landlord, and the reader knows who is meant. An uncountable noun and a plural meant in general take no article at first mention: landlords, advice.

What cannot be worked out

Neither the sound rule nor the institutional idioms can be reasoned out from the three decisions: they are remembered. They matter most in the writing paper, where you produce an honest opinion or go to school yourself, with no options to pick from.

The three decisions mixed

First four editing lines and three gaps from a text about a bakery that has reopened after refurbishment, then one more gap. Nothing says which of the three decisions is at work in a line.

The two errors here come from different columns of the table. The the before friendliness is one word too many because "which friendliness?" has no answer, and the a before furniture is one word too many because English does not count furniture. The bakery text goes on, but now you write the word into the gap yourself.

In the last line it is same that calls for the: it points at the people itself, and the repeat plays no part. The next sentence comes from a different text, and it offers four options.

Determiners in editing: a word with nothing to point at

Three lines from different short texts. In some of them one word has nothing in the line to belong to; strike it, or leave the line clean.

Two errors of different kinds, and one mechanism behind them: a determiner needs something to point at, and in these lines it has nothing.

A plural that names a group in general takes no determiner, so an any in front of it picks out nothing and is one word too many. It is the first row of the table above, the last case in its When column: cars are expensive, a rise in younger visitors. Before a plural, any means "whichever, it does not matter which": any spare parts go back on the shelf, or after a question or a negative, Are there any questions?, We don't have any spare parts. A rise in younger visitors leaves no such choice open: it is about the group as a whole, so any has no job there.

A month after in takes no article: in November, in January, so a the between in and the month is one word too many. The month is a name, like March in the second line, and a name in this position does not need the to say which one.

What to take with you

The order in which to look at any noun, three questions in a row:

1. Can the reader already identify it: named earlier, one of a kind, pinned down by what follows? Then the.
2. One of many and named for the first time? Then a, and an before a vowel sound.
3. Generic, abstract, or a plural in general? Then nothing, and the here is the extra word.

Editing: where the before an abstract noun is a standard extra word Open cloze: the article as the answer in a gap with no options Blog comment: where the first mention with a/an becomes the second with the