Articles are completely useless in the English language, grammar police where are you to weigh in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you aren't very bright, are you? I'm sure your caveman English is perfectly adequate for someone of your station and needs, but be grateful that there are others capable of thinking at a higher level.

Actually, you are not very bright. You have missed the point entirely. (And you are rude, to boot. If you are going to be an a$$hole, at least be intelligent.)

OP is playing a game. This thread is essentially a Socratic dialogue.

The Socratic method (also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate) is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should we get rid of proper spelling too? Hu kairs az long az u git tha meening, rit?

Luv eet!

What is proper English spelling though? Nobody knows, nor does anyone know why certain words with exact same order of letters are pronounced differently! Sean, Shawn. Anna, with an e, but Armory, with an a!

Maybe you don't know but others do. There are reasons for all of these spellings and pronunciations. That's what etymology is, the history and explanation of words.

Ha, ha. I probably know more than you do! After all, I studied Latin, and while I did not study ancient Greek, I studied ancient Greece and learned a ton of words and mythology, and read most poetry. I also studied French, German, English, and Norwegian, in addition to speaking a Slavic language and hence being able to understand several Slavic languages. I can recognize the root of the word in Slavic and English and German and French. Indo-European, no? There is a reason for it. I can even recognize and find the root of most words in Iranian and Indian.

Iranian and Indian are not languages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you aren't very bright, are you? I'm sure your caveman English is perfectly adequate for someone of your station and needs, but be grateful that there are others capable of thinking at a higher level.

My station is clearly much higher than yours, in every single way. I do not resort to insulting people as I am above that kind of behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A bison

And if you just said: bison.
You would know exactly what you mean, and everyone would know it too.

No, stupid. The PP's point, which you missed because your English isn't very good, is that "bison" can be either singular or plural. "A bison" means one bison. Just saying "bison" can mean any number of bison; removing the article removes the precision of indicating a singular item only here.

A real whippersnapper, aren't you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should we get rid of proper spelling too? Hu kairs az long az u git tha meening, rit?

Luv eet!

What is proper English spelling though? Nobody knows, nor does anyone know why certain words with exact same order of letters are pronounced differently! Sean, Shawn. Anna, with an e, but Armory, with an a!

Maybe you don't know but others do. There are reasons for all of these spellings and pronunciations. That's what etymology is, the history and explanation of words.

Ha, ha. I probably know more than you do! After all, I studied Latin, and while I did not study ancient Greek, I studied ancient Greece and learned a ton of words and mythology, and read most poetry. I also studied French, German, English, and Norwegian, in addition to speaking a Slavic language and hence being able to understand several Slavic languages. I can recognize the root of the word in Slavic and English and German and French. Indo-European, no? There is a reason for it. I can even recognize and find the root of most words in Iranian and Indian.

Iranian and Indian are not languages.

Yes, I am aware. I was just dumbing it down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you aren't very bright, are you? I'm sure your caveman English is perfectly adequate for someone of your station and needs, but be grateful that there are others capable of thinking at a higher level.

Actually, you are not very bright. You have missed the point entirely. (And you are rude, to boot. If you are going to be an a$$hole, at least be intelligent.)

OP is playing a game. This thread is essentially a Socratic dialogue.

The Socratic method (also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate) is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.

Thank you. And the game was going pretty well, or so I thought. I was convinced by a pp that there is use for articles in the English language.

[Anonymous]

I have actually been impressed by the critical reasoning skills, logic, and command of the English language of some of the people on this thread. It does give me hope that there are still some sparks of true intellect out there.

(Obviously, I am excepting the people whose thinking wasn't elevated enough to grasp what was going on.)

I suspect some of people offering compelling arguments are pretty fantastic lawyers.

I have enjoyed reading this thread. Go, OP.

[Anonymous]

He is the man who kissed my wife. (Just one such man)

Versus

He is a man who kissed my wife. (There could be more than one such man!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a big difference between "the" and "a." Look at these two sentences:

1) The boy is running down the street.
2) A boy is running down the street.

In #1 you know it is a specific boy, one who within the context of the paragraph has been identified. In #2 you only know that some random boy is running down the street.

Not much difference, though, and who is ever saying that other than English teachers? To teach how to use a useless article. When did you hear that sentence in actual use? I know this boy or a random boy is running? You are never going to use it that way, ever. Useless.

Well, why not communicate like cave people, i.e., "me hungry?" "Me done?"

Or, write using proper English.

"A Falls Church boy was found today lost in the woods. The boy had been missing for five days."

As a PP explained, you introduce the person or thing using "a" or "an." After the introduction, you use "the."

Consider incorrect English:

"The Falls Church boy was found today."

"The" boy? Is he famous? Should I already know about THE boy?

On that note, I'm not "a" DCUM. I am THE DCUM. THE one. ha!

Your caveman is quite poor. Early languages appear to have specific cases for nouns to indicate their usage.

I throw means I am going to throw, apparently, something.
Me throw or throw me, would both be correct and imply I wanted to be thrown.

Word order was less important then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have actually been impressed by the critical reasoning skills, logic, and command of the English language of some of the people on this thread. It does give me hope that there are still some sparks of true intellect out there.

(Obviously, I am excepting the people whose thinking wasn't elevated enough to grasp what was going on.)

I suspect some of people offering compelling arguments are pretty fantastic lawyers.

I have enjoyed reading this thread. Go, OP.

I gave up after a few pages, but I saw many explanations of how articles function in English and no arguments, compelling or otherwise, as to why they are necessary when, in fact, many languages do not use them. Many posters may have limited exposure to non-Western European languages, which makes it difficult to imagine how similar (specific, general) meanings are transmitted without articles. It may be largely a matter of context, as OP suggests, but it may also be that other languages rely on grammatical constructions English doesn’t use (more specific particles, declensions, etc.) or does not use to the same extent.

[Anonymous]

It’s not absolutely necessary to have articles in English. It’s just that I language has them and so they have meeting and we use them. They’re useful for adding a little bit more clarity to a sentence or a situation.

You know what else we have an English that we don’t have absolutely need? Synonyms. We have the word drinkable which means the exact same thing as potable. In German they just have one word: trinkbar. In French they just have one word: potable. But in English we have both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have actually been impressed by the critical reasoning skills, logic, and command of the English language of some of the people on this thread. It does give me hope that there are still some sparks of true intellect out there.

(Obviously, I am excepting the people whose thinking wasn't elevated enough to grasp what was going on.)

I suspect some of people offering compelling arguments are pretty fantastic lawyers.

I have enjoyed reading this thread. Go, OP.

I gave up after a few pages, but I saw many explanations of how articles function in English and no arguments, compelling or otherwise, as to why they are necessary when, in fact, many languages do not use them. Many posters may have limited exposure to non-Western European languages, which makes it difficult to imagine how similar (specific, general) meanings are transmitted without articles. It may be largely a matter of context, as OP suggests, but it may also be that other languages rely on grammatical constructions English doesn’t use (more specific particles, declensions, etc.) or does not use to the same extent.

If the criteria for "not necessary" is "some languages don't have them" then of course, they're not necessary. By that same logic, we should get rid of the verb "to be" from English, get rid of cases from German, and get rid of classifiers from the Thai. Languages get along without all of those after all. Somehow I imagine if I went to a German language message board arguing to get rid of noun declension no one would take me seriously, which I'd deserve. I wouldn't expect a "compelling argument" and I'd expect to be called names, because I'd be being pretty rude.

OP also didn't title this "not necessary," they titled it "completely useless." That's an entirely different argument, for which some basic explanations of how they're used actually does demonstrate that they're useful, even if not totally essential.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I concur.

Well, there is a slight change in meaning but you can figure it out from context. The Chinese do it every day.

That wouldn't fly if you are trying to argue the meaning of a legal contract in English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not absolutely necessary to have articles in English. It’s just that I language has them and so they have meeting and we use them. They’re useful for adding a little bit more clarity to a sentence or a situation.

You know what else we have an English that we don’t have absolutely need? Synonyms. We have the word drinkable which means the exact same thing as potable. In German they just have one word: trinkbar. In French they just have one word: potable. But in English we have both.

The amazing thing about English is the "synonyms"!! They add so much nuance and complexity. So for the examples you used. I would say that the red wine I had at dinner was "perfectly drinkable." That means it was a decent wine but nothing special. I woudn't use "potable" in that case. I would reserve that for water that wasn't going to give me diarrhea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A bison

And if you just said: bison.
You would know exactly what you mean, and everyone would know it too.

No, stupid. The PP's point, which you missed because your English isn't very good, is that "bison" can be either singular or plural. "A bison" means one bison. Just saying "bison" can mean any number of bison; removing the article removes the precision of indicating a singular item only here.

Sadly, the fact that you think I missed the point is more a reflection of your intellect than mine.