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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of all the things to complain about the English language, you pick.........articles?

Most ESL people complain about articles in English. Yet, is there a need for them? If you pause and think about it without being defensive, what is really gained by the use of articles? Sure, it sounds right, but useless to the meaning.

But they're not useless. They add meaning. So there's a need for them.

Ok, what meaning do they add? Outside elementary ESL classroom examples?

I gave you an example up thread of a medical case report: THE patient experienced acute vomiting and vertigo vs A patient tends to present with dyspnea.

Ok, sure, but we know we are talking about a patient, no? When will you ever say, A patient other than teaching a class, in which case, patient is just as good? Be it THE or A.

[Anonymous]

Esperanto only has the definite article. If a constructed language felt a need to include articles, they serve a purpose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of all the things to complain about the English language, you pick.........articles?

Most ESL people complain about articles in English. Yet, is there a need for them? If you pause and think about it without being defensive, what is really gained by the use of articles? Sure, it sounds right, but useless to the meaning.

But they're not useless. They add meaning. So there's a need for them.

Ok, what meaning do they add? Outside elementary ESL classroom examples?

I gave you an example up thread of a medical case report: THE patient experienced acute vomiting and vertigo vs A patient tends to present with dyspnea.

Ok, sure, but we know we are talking about a patient, no? When will you ever say, A patient other than teaching a class, in which case, patient is just as good? Be it THE or A.

DP. I'm in my office waiting for someone with an appointment. (I'm a lawyer, so I'm changing it to client). My assistant comes in and says "the client is here." I know the person who is here is the person I'm waiting for. My assistant comes in and says "a client is here," I know the person in question is NOT who I'm expecting.

Is it necessary? No. Is it useful? Yes, which is why lots of languages use articles to indicate definiteness. English gets along fine without grammatical gender or cases, but that doesn't mean it's not useful for those languages that have it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, I am not saying that there has to be logical meaning to languages, plenty do not have a ton of logic, just that we can get by without the use of articles.
I am not attacking anyone personally, just saying.
We can get by without (skip the) use of articles.

So just stop using them. You can feel free to sound like you have a limited grasp of the English language, and you can believe you are correct. Win/win. But nobody has to join you in your worthless crusade.

Wow! The greatness of the dcum mind! Just yelling..

Eh. Plenty of examples have already been given. Since they've been rejected, it's hard to think that additional examples will be fruitful.

[Anonymous]

None of the examples are proving the point that articles are necessary, just that they are superficial and that people know how to explain to thrid graders how to use them in English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, I am not saying that there has to be logical meaning to languages, plenty do not have a ton of logic, just that we can get by without the use of articles.
I am not attacking anyone personally, just saying.
We can get by without (skip the) use of articles.

So just stop using them. You can feel free to sound like you have a limited grasp of the English language, and you can believe you are correct. Win/win. But nobody has to join you in your worthless crusade.

Why are you insulting me? I am not on any crusade. I am trying to debate something. You clearly don't know how to debate in a civil manner. I did not attack your mom or dad, just the use of the article.

Your reasons are basically: they are stupid and I don’t like them. It’s not very deep nor is it a “debate”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of all the things to complain about the English language, you pick.........articles?

Most ESL people complain about articles in English. Yet, is there a need for them? If you pause and think about it without being defensive, what is really gained by the use of articles? Sure, it sounds right, but useless to the meaning.

Pretty much everyone learning a foreign language has something to complain about. Why are nouns gendered in German? Why are nouns and adjectives declined in Russian? Why are "he", "she", and "it" pronounced the same in Mandarin? Why do you always have to use subject pronouns in French, but not Spanish? Why does English have so many verb conjugations and Japanese so few? Why does word order vary so much between languages? I find the differences fascinating, and there is a reason languages are the way they are. It gives you insight into the culture and history.

In Italian, to say "my", you either use "il mio", "la mia", or "i miei", depending on the quantity and gender. You could drop the "il", "la", and "i" and be completely understandable, but it is not good Italian. I'm sure that if I knew what the op's first language was, I could find something else that is "useless" or "illogical". So what?

NP. I speak Spanish as a second language. If I could choose one language that would be used worldwide- I'd choose Spanish. It was always pretty logical, especially with central or south American Spanish that didn't use vosotros. But perhaps it will fall out of favor because it's so gendered and we're moving to a genderless world. English nouns aren't gendered and much less in English is gendered.

[Anonymous]

I agree they are not needed, and my family and I gave up articles quite a while ago in our text chats. We also say "what doing" instead of the laborious, "what are you doing", and similar.

[Anonymous]

Examples are useless without a lot of context. Try watching a movie and retelling the story about multiple characters without using articles.

Men need to eat. = generic reference, all men
A man/the man needs to eat = specific references
A man - new referent (most of the time, can also be generic as in 'A man needs to eat to have energy')
the man - known referent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of all the things to complain about the English language, you pick.........articles?

Most ESL people complain about articles in English. Yet, is there a need for them? If you pause and think about it without being defensive, what is really gained by the use of articles? Sure, it sounds right, but useless to the meaning.

But they're not useless. They add meaning. So there's a need for them.

Ok, what meaning do they add? Outside elementary ESL classroom examples?

I gave you an example up thread of a medical case report: THE patient experienced acute vomiting and vertigo vs A patient tends to present with dyspnea.

Ok, sure, but we know we are talking about a patient, no? When will you ever say, A patient other than teaching a class, in which case, patient is just as good? Be it THE or A.

I have no idea what this word salad is supposed to mean. I'm talking about writing a case report. And yes, teaching a class, because that's what I do. And I need my articles in Enlgish to communicate my information clearly. I can't leave room to interpretation..- it's life or death.

Give me THE Epinephrine! Vs give me An Epinephrine dose!! One means it is a specific object that has the medication ready to go. The other means you need to draw it up. Seconds count in a code.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of all the things to complain about the English language, you pick.........articles?

Most ESL people complain about articles in English. Yet, is there a need for them? If you pause and think about it without being defensive, what is really gained by the use of articles? Sure, it sounds right, but useless to the meaning.

But they're not useless. They add meaning. So there's a need for them.

Ok, what meaning do they add? Outside elementary ESL classroom examples?

I gave you an example up thread of a medical case report: THE patient experienced acute vomiting and vertigo vs A patient tends to present with dyspnea.

Ok, sure, but we know we are talking about a patient, no? When will you ever say, A patient other than teaching a class, in which case, patient is just as good? Be it THE or A.

I have no idea what this word salad is supposed to mean. I'm talking about writing a case report. And yes, teaching a class, because that's what I do. And I need my articles in Enlgish to communicate my information clearly. I can't leave room to interpretation..- it's life or death.

Give me THE Epinephrine! Vs give me An Epinephrine dose!! One means it is a specific object that has the medication ready to go. The other means you need to draw it up. Seconds count in a code.

Attacking instead of answering, plus if you have that much trouble understanding my sentence well, you can't understand much of anything! If you said epinephrine it would result in the same action.

[Anonymous]

The topic of this thread is wrong. First, articles are not completely useless. The definite article serves to refer to a specific object, only meaningful in context. If you examine an isolated sentence, articles seem useless. They serve no purpose without surrounding context. Can you work around them? Yes. For example, you wrote, "the English language" when you could write just English. BTW, that's a curious usage for a non-native speaker attempting to be reductionist. Weigh in is another curious idiomatic usage that's generally not taught because it's a poor construct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The topic of this thread is wrong. First, articles are not completely useless. The definite article serves to refer to a specific object, only meaningful in context. If you examine an isolated sentence, articles seem useless. They serve no purpose without surrounding context. Can you work around them? Yes. For example, you wrote, "the English language" when you could write just English. BTW, that's a curious usage for a non-native speaker attempting to be reductionist. Weigh in is another curious idiomatic usage that's generally not taught because it's a poor construct.

Every language has poor constructs, for sure. Yet, articles are used so often, and often are useless. If I write a paper stating... Jack's results show that he suffers from anemia. (detail results here) The results show that he needs to improve his intake of..
Sure, I know I am referring to specific Jack's results, no? Superficial.
Can you give an example of where it helps with the meaning? In a longer passage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of all the things to complain about the English language, you pick.........articles?

Also, other things have some order. Have, have been, have had been...whatever.
There is some need for that madness, but articles? I am not thinking about it maliciously, I was on a long drive and such random analysis popped in my brain. And I thought that the dcum grammar police would be great at analyzing this issue.

Prepositions are hard in English. Which ones to use and when to use them are a lot more complicated than figuring out articles. Articles are one of the easiest things to learn in English, compared to a language like German.

We have incredibly specific verb tenses when it comes to time, including helping verbs. This is much more complicated in English than other languages.

Our pronunciation and spelling are complicated and violate rules 1/3 of the time.

I appreciate the precision that articles provide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of all the things to complain about the English language, you pick.........articles?

Also, other things have some order. Have, have been, have had been...whatever.
There is some need for that madness, but articles? I am not thinking about it maliciously, I was on a long drive and such random analysis popped in my brain. And I thought that the dcum grammar police would be great at analyzing this issue.

Prepositions are hard in English. Which ones to use and when to use them are a lot more complicated than figuring out articles. Articles are one of the easiest things to learn in English, compared to a language like German.

We have incredibly specific verb tenses when it comes to time, including helping verbs. This is much more complicated in English than other languages.

Our pronunciation and spelling are complicated and violate rules 1/3 of the time.

I appreciate the precision that articles provide.

Examples of this precision?