“Since the train was delayed for more than an hour, passengers were given a full refund.” – Why is there no article before “passengers”? Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara Planned maintenance scheduled April 23, 2019 at 23:30 UTC (7:30pm US/Eastern) Contributor's Guide to English Language LearnersArticle Confusion Again! Why is there an 'a' instead of a 'the'?Can “the + noun” be a general reference?appendicitis is inflammation of the appendix — why is there no definite article in front of “inflammation”?Should I use “a” or “the” to designate the particular one I'm going to talk about?Why is there no article in the sentence “Then came number”?Definite article in “Police were able to find out where the father lived from _THE_ information the child provided”British colonies or the British colonies?“The Jesus who said” - why is there a definite article before the proper name “Jesus”?particularizing attribute with indefinite articleWhy is “Reports” in the sentence below without the article “The”?
Why do C and C++ allow the expression (int) + 4*5?
Why doesn't the university give past final exams' answers?
xkeyval -- read keys from file
Pointing to problems without suggesting solutions
Is it OK if I do not take the receipt in Germany?
Does the Pact of the Blade warlock feature allow me to customize the properties of the pact weapon I create?
lm and glm function in R
Why did Israel vote against lifting the American embargo on Cuba?
Like totally amazing interchangeable sister outfit accessory swapping or whatever
What helicopter has the most rotor blades?
What is the definining line between a helicopter and a drone a person can ride in?
Can stored/leased 737s be used to substitute for grounded MAXs?
How to ask rejected full-time candidates to apply to teach individual courses?
Married in secret, can marital status in passport be changed at a later date?
What combination of kingdom cards makes for the fewest number of turns to end the game?
Short story about an alien named Ushtu(?) coming from a future Earth, when ours was destroyed by a nuclear explosion
Coin Game with infinite paradox
Is my guitar’s action too high?
How do I deal with an erroneously large refund?
false 'Security alert' from Google - every login generates mails from 'no-reply@accounts.google.com'
Can a Wizard take the Magic Initiate feat and select spells from the Wizard list?
Can the van der Waals coefficients be negative in the van der Waals equation for real gases?
tabularx column has extra padding at right?
Can I take recommendation from someone I met at a conference?
“Since the train was delayed for more than an hour, passengers were given a full refund.” – Why is there no article before “passengers”?
Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara
Planned maintenance scheduled April 23, 2019 at 23:30 UTC (7:30pm US/Eastern)
Contributor's Guide to English Language LearnersArticle Confusion Again! Why is there an 'a' instead of a 'the'?Can “the + noun” be a general reference?appendicitis is inflammation of the appendix — why is there no definite article in front of “inflammation”?Should I use “a” or “the” to designate the particular one I'm going to talk about?Why is there no article in the sentence “Then came number”?Definite article in “Police were able to find out where the father lived from _THE_ information the child provided”British colonies or the British colonies?“The Jesus who said” - why is there a definite article before the proper name “Jesus”?particularizing attribute with indefinite articleWhy is “Reports” in the sentence below without the article “The”?
.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty margin-bottom:0;
After all, we are talking about very definite passengers – the ones that were on that train. Can it be gathered from the sentence that not all of the passengers were given a refund?
P.S. The sentence comes from a grammar book.
articles
asked 5 hours ago
ZakZak
6371311
add a comment |
After all, we are talking about very definite passengers – the ones that were on that train. Can it be gathered from the sentence that not all of the passengers were given a refund?
P.S. The sentence comes from a grammar book.
articles
asked 5 hours ago
ZakZak
6371311
add a comment |
After all, we are talking about very definite passengers – the ones that were on that train. Can it be gathered from the sentence that not all of the passengers were given a refund?
P.S. The sentence comes from a grammar book.
articles
asked 5 hours ago
ZakZak
6371311
After all, we are talking about very definite passengers – the ones that were on that train. Can it be gathered from the sentence that not all of the passengers were given a refund?
P.S. The sentence comes from a grammar book.
articles
articles
asked 5 hours ago
ZakZak
6371311
asked 5 hours ago
ZakZak
6371311
asked 5 hours ago
ZakZak
6371311
asked 5 hours ago
ZakZak
6371311
asked 5 hours ago
ZakZak
6371311
6371311
add a comment |
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
It could be a stylistic reason, because "the" has already been used for "the train", so "passengers" reads better. It is possibly from a newspaper article. Your reasoning is correct, the refund concerns these specific passengers.
answered 1 hour ago
anoukanouk
1,763414
add a comment |
The sentence
Since the train was delayed for more than an hour, passengers were given a full refund.
is formally ambiguous. One cannot tell from the sentence alone weather the passengers were given a refund -- that is, all the passengers. Or whether only some passengers were given a refund -- perhaps only those who complained. When an article is elided in this way, the reader must determine from context and common sense what the meaning is, and which article is implied. Here either choice is possible, although "the" seems more likely. But in another context the result would be different.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased.
Does that mean that every one of the dead person's friends and family spoke, or only some of them? Were all of them even present? "Some" is the likely choice here, but furhter context could change that.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased -- all five who were still alive.
Now the implication is otherwise.
When the choice of article is obvious, omitting it does not mislead the reader. When there is more than one serious possibility, this may be poor writing. Or it may be intentionally ambiguous writing.
answered 57 mins ago
David SiegelDavid Siegel
2,984316
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function()
var channelOptions =
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "481"
;
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
createEditor();
);
else
createEditor();
);
function createEditor()
StackExchange.prepareEditor(
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader:
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
,
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
);
);
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fell.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f206580%2fsince-the-train-was-delayed-for-more-than-an-hour-passengers-were-given-a-full%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
It could be a stylistic reason, because "the" has already been used for "the train", so "passengers" reads better. It is possibly from a newspaper article. Your reasoning is correct, the refund concerns these specific passengers.
answered 1 hour ago
anoukanouk
1,763414
add a comment |
It could be a stylistic reason, because "the" has already been used for "the train", so "passengers" reads better. It is possibly from a newspaper article. Your reasoning is correct, the refund concerns these specific passengers.
answered 1 hour ago
anoukanouk
1,763414
add a comment |
It could be a stylistic reason, because "the" has already been used for "the train", so "passengers" reads better. It is possibly from a newspaper article. Your reasoning is correct, the refund concerns these specific passengers.
answered 1 hour ago
anoukanouk
1,763414
It could be a stylistic reason, because "the" has already been used for "the train", so "passengers" reads better. It is possibly from a newspaper article. Your reasoning is correct, the refund concerns these specific passengers.
answered 1 hour ago
anoukanouk
1,763414
answered 1 hour ago
anoukanouk
1,763414
answered 1 hour ago
anoukanouk
1,763414
answered 1 hour ago
anoukanouk
1,763414
1,763414
add a comment |
add a comment |
The sentence
Since the train was delayed for more than an hour, passengers were given a full refund.
is formally ambiguous. One cannot tell from the sentence alone weather the passengers were given a refund -- that is, all the passengers. Or whether only some passengers were given a refund -- perhaps only those who complained. When an article is elided in this way, the reader must determine from context and common sense what the meaning is, and which article is implied. Here either choice is possible, although "the" seems more likely. But in another context the result would be different.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased.
Does that mean that every one of the dead person's friends and family spoke, or only some of them? Were all of them even present? "Some" is the likely choice here, but furhter context could change that.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased -- all five who were still alive.
Now the implication is otherwise.
When the choice of article is obvious, omitting it does not mislead the reader. When there is more than one serious possibility, this may be poor writing. Or it may be intentionally ambiguous writing.
answered 57 mins ago
David SiegelDavid Siegel
2,984316
add a comment |
The sentence
Since the train was delayed for more than an hour, passengers were given a full refund.
is formally ambiguous. One cannot tell from the sentence alone weather the passengers were given a refund -- that is, all the passengers. Or whether only some passengers were given a refund -- perhaps only those who complained. When an article is elided in this way, the reader must determine from context and common sense what the meaning is, and which article is implied. Here either choice is possible, although "the" seems more likely. But in another context the result would be different.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased.
Does that mean that every one of the dead person's friends and family spoke, or only some of them? Were all of them even present? "Some" is the likely choice here, but furhter context could change that.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased -- all five who were still alive.
Now the implication is otherwise.
When the choice of article is obvious, omitting it does not mislead the reader. When there is more than one serious possibility, this may be poor writing. Or it may be intentionally ambiguous writing.
answered 57 mins ago
David SiegelDavid Siegel
2,984316
add a comment |
The sentence
Since the train was delayed for more than an hour, passengers were given a full refund.
is formally ambiguous. One cannot tell from the sentence alone weather the passengers were given a refund -- that is, all the passengers. Or whether only some passengers were given a refund -- perhaps only those who complained. When an article is elided in this way, the reader must determine from context and common sense what the meaning is, and which article is implied. Here either choice is possible, although "the" seems more likely. But in another context the result would be different.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased.
Does that mean that every one of the dead person's friends and family spoke, or only some of them? Were all of them even present? "Some" is the likely choice here, but furhter context could change that.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased -- all five who were still alive.
Now the implication is otherwise.
When the choice of article is obvious, omitting it does not mislead the reader. When there is more than one serious possibility, this may be poor writing. Or it may be intentionally ambiguous writing.
answered 57 mins ago
David SiegelDavid Siegel
2,984316
The sentence
Since the train was delayed for more than an hour, passengers were given a full refund.
is formally ambiguous. One cannot tell from the sentence alone weather the passengers were given a refund -- that is, all the passengers. Or whether only some passengers were given a refund -- perhaps only those who complained. When an article is elided in this way, the reader must determine from context and common sense what the meaning is, and which article is implied. Here either choice is possible, although "the" seems more likely. But in another context the result would be different.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased.
Does that mean that every one of the dead person's friends and family spoke, or only some of them? Were all of them even present? "Some" is the likely choice here, but furhter context could change that.
After the minister's eulogy, friends and family spoke about the deceased -- all five who were still alive.
Now the implication is otherwise.
When the choice of article is obvious, omitting it does not mislead the reader. When there is more than one serious possibility, this may be poor writing. Or it may be intentionally ambiguous writing.
answered 57 mins ago
David SiegelDavid Siegel
2,984316
answered 57 mins ago
David SiegelDavid Siegel
2,984316
answered 57 mins ago
David SiegelDavid Siegel
2,984316
answered 57 mins ago
David SiegelDavid Siegel
2,984316
2,984316
add a comment |
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to English Language Learners Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fell.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f206580%2fsince-the-train-was-delayed-for-more-than-an-hour-passengers-were-given-a-full%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
