If only there were a network of computers
hosting all of mankind’s knowledge.
Oh, wait, there is such a network, now. We even have access to it with convenient handheld devices, an innovation that has permanently ruined the sport of bar bets.
If only those computers didn’t also host
so much nonsense.
Wait, what? You mean that you can’t count on the accuracy of what you find online? Say it isn’t so.
Sigh. Where to begin? Maybe with why I was looking at a site that claimed to be teaching the proper use of articles to folks learning English as an additional language.
Fast-backward to a conversation several years ago about excising (the) extraneous definite articles from (the) text produced by (the) technical experts whose first language was (the) English. I was talking to someone whose first language was not (the) English, and his head almost exploded as I casually mentioned my article-deleting practice.
What?
You don’t need an article
for general nouns?
Oh, oh. I could see his world of English knowledge moving beneath his feet, and not in a good way.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is to back away slowly, and that’s what I did. I couldn’t think of any way to explain–both clearly and quickly–why what I was doing didn’t, in fact, transgress the Rules of English™ he had so painfully learned. And it was, after all, just a passing conversation: I wasn’t training an editor or teaching English, so I let it go.
But it niggled, you know? I knew intuitively when to delete (the) articles inserted in (the) text I received from (the) writers, and when not to, but I couldn’t explain it. So, one day I decided to ask the hive mind about the rules for using definite articles in (the) English, and the universe rewarded my curiosity, my attempt to improve myself, with this:
Um, no, no, and no again.
If a proper or abstract uncountable noun is used in a general sense, no article is needed; for example:
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- Diamond is an expensive material. (OK – “Diamond” is hardly abstract but in this usage it is uncountable.)
- Knowledge is (the) power. (Guys – sauce for the goose, and all that.)
- Calcutta is known as the City of Joy. (OK – “Calcutta” is a proper noun and, although I fail to see what it would mean to use it in a general sense, it certainly does not want an article, definite or otherwise. But “City of Joy” wants capitals. I mean, while we’re here.)
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What did I learn from my wee foray? Well, not why “Calcutta” doesn’t need an article but “City of Joy” does. And not how to explain my intuitive editing of (the) articles for (the) enhanced readability.
On the other hand, articles aside, I did learn that anyone who can write “article need not to be used before the noun” should not be trusted alone with English students of any stripe, or with the explanation of abstract uncountable rules used in general sense.
And I learned–again–that knowledge is, indeed, the power: In this case, the power to sort out the wonderful that the internet indubitably provides, from the awful, which it also provides in (the) heaping helpings. And I learned–again again–to be careful when reading things where I do not, in (the) fact, have the knowledge to distinguish wonderful from awful.
