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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]
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.[/quote]

Well, "Boy is running down street" pretty much does everything either of the two examples do.

And I can see how you could pull off vivid meaning using no articles and also not, say, repeating "brown haired boy is running down street. Brown haired boy is veering into traffic. Blue car hits brown haired boy, but brown haired boy keeps running". But . . . . Much in our language has been shaped by usages going back millenia (10s of millenia), many words and phrases, if you ponder them, have little or at best cryptic meaning.

Someone must be tearing their hair own helping someone with homework. 
[/quote]

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