235. Special Uses of “the”

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The standard description of “the” leaves many things unsaid about its uses

THE VERSATILITY OF “the”

The fundamental uses of the that are usually presented in elementary English courses are not a reliable guide to its wider, sometimes rather surprising use. Some indications that this is the case are also encountered at a fairly early stage, for example within lessons on comparative adjectives and adverbs (the more… the more…) and on proper nouns – names of nations, mountains, rivers, companies etc. – where no generalization seems capable of clearly showing in all cases where and where not to add the (see 47. Article Errors with Proper Nouns).

Advanced English courses do usually provide a fuller description of the. However, my experience is that even these are rarely complete, and that the different special uses that are mentioned are often scattered in different places and contexts. My aim here is to bring together special uses of the, especially in professional contexts, that I think need to be highlighted. Some of them are also covered elsewhere within these pages but will, I hope, benefit from being collected together here along with some new ones. I cannot claim that I have managed to gather together all of the specialised uses, but I hope that the main ones are here and that their description will prove informative.

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 SPECIAL USES

As a preliminary, it seems useful to summarise what are usually considered to be the two fundamental uses of the. The first is to suggest to a reader or listener that they are expected to be already familiar with whoever or whatever an accompanying noun stands for. In other words, the establishes a noun as “identified” or “definite” rather than “unidentified”, which is the basic meaning of a(n).

Secondly, learners at elementary level are likely to learn that the marks nouns as “specific” rather than “generic”, sometimes at the expense of the “identified” meaning, sometimes not.

The more specialised uses of the include the following:

1. With Generic Nouns

Generic nouns help to make statements about events and situations that are not tied to any particular point or period in time, like this:

(a) Consumers often seek a bargain price.

Both consumers and price are generic here because they are linked with the action of repeatedly seeking a bargain price in the past, present and future. Reflecting the general tendency of generic nouns not to have the, plural consumers has no article at all, while singular countable price has a (see 110. Nouns without “the” or “a”).

Confusingly, though, the is sometimes found with generic nouns, particularly singular countable ones. We could, indeed, say the consumer above instead of consumers. It tends to be the type of noun that determines whether or not the + countable singular is possible. For a list of common types allowing it, see 89. Using “the” with General Meaning.

Noun type could also explain some of the much rarer use of generic the with plural and uncountable nouns: quite often this use seems to accompany nouns representing something that can normally be seen. For example, the stars, whose exemplars are so often visible, is common in generalizations, but the worms, with mostly invisible exemplars, is not.

One other point about generic nouns is that their typical non-use of the applies even when they are assumed to be already familiar to the addressee: the need to avoid the with generic nouns overrides the need to use it when the noun is “identified”. The is even incorrect with repetitions of generic nouns.

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2. With Consecutive Nouns

Nouns placed directly next to each other in order to express a relation between them, such as sun rays or language acquisition experience, are common in professional writing. In order to decide whether to use the, a(n) or nothing at all, you mainly have to consider the last of the nouns. Take sun rays. Since the last noun, rays, is plural, a could not be used at the start. We could use the to indicate that the two nouns together were referring to specific identified sun rays rather than generic ones, and no article at all to indicate generic ones.

Thus, the first of grouped nouns has no influence on the choice of article: the fact that sun by itself nearly always has the is irrelevant when sun starts a noun group (see 38. Nouns Used like Adjectives, #2 and 138. Test your Command of Grammar 1, #2).

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3. With Numbers

Most numbers can be used with and without the in the normal way. Thus, three questions refers to a previously unidentified three, while the must be added if the number is already clear from previous words or the context. However, there are two important cases where this rule is not followed.

Is it normally possible to add the before nouns followed by a number, as in page 5, day 2, step B and book one? The answer is no, however illogical that may seem (see 77. Apposition, #2). The only exception that I can think of is with year specifications like the year 2019, which always need the. Care is needed not to confuse these two uses (see 303. Confusions of Similar Structures 4, #2).

The other special use of the with numbers is in introductions to a list, where the number refers forward to a later-detailed quantity rather than back to an earlier one:

(b) The two main languages of South America are Portuguese and Spanish.

The presence of the here indicates that the listed items Portuguese and Spanish are the only ones in the category main languages of South America: there are no unmentioned others. Omitting the, on the other hand, would suggest that unmentioned others do exist (see 55. Sentence Lists 2, #1). Note that this rule only applies when the words before a list cannot stand alone as a complete sentence, usually because they end in a verb. When they can stand alone, for example in sentences beginning there are…, the is never possible before the number.

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4. With Public Place Nouns

Public places offer the people of an area a specific activity or service. Many public place nouns, e.g. church, college, court, hospital, jail, market, nursery, prison, school, town and university, have slightly different meanings according to whether or not their singular form has an article before it. Use without one (making them uncountable) highlights participation in the activity. For example How was town? asks about someone’s experience in the nearest town. Go to university means “become a university student”; go to prison means “become a prisoner” (see 176. Ways of Using GO, #5).

By contrast, use of a(n) or the with the above nouns directs attention to their status as places rather than activities. Thus, went to the prison indicates a visit to the building but not what was done there. The is more common than a(n) because public places tend to be the only one in their environment.

Some names of commercial companies have similar variability. For example, the company name London Underground becomes a reference to a place when used after the (see 47. Article Errors with Proper Nouns). On the other hand, not all public place nouns are usable in both of the above ways – they are only countable. Common ones are the cinema, the city, the garage, the mosque, the (doctor’s) surgery and the town hall (see 242. Words with Unexpected Grammar 3, #f).

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5. With Lone Adjectives

This use is the topic of two entire Guinlist posts entitled Adjectives with no Noun. The first describes how the + adjective can represent a general group of people (e.g. the elderly), the second how it can represent an abstract idea (e.g. the impossible).

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6. With Superlative Adjectives and Adverbs

It is quite a common error for the to be left out before a superlative adjective or adverb. However, it is not true to say that superlatives always need the. A better generalization is that it is necessary in most situations, optional in one, and unlikely in one other.

The optional use of the is before superlative adverbs describing a verb, as in failed (the) most often. The unlikely use is sometimes when the partner noun of a superlative adjective is before it and separated by a link verb like BE, as in bees are (the) busiest…. Here, the is necessary if the meaning of the mentioned noun is being compared with other noun meanings (e.g. bees versus other insects) but unlikely if the mentioned noun meaning is being compared with itself in a different situation (e.g. bees at other times).

For details of both these uses, see 82. Common Errors in Making Comparisons, #9. For other aspects of superlatives, see 305. Wording next to Superlatives.

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7. With Someone’s Description before their Name

This aspect is again as much about dropping the as using it. Examples are Doctor Zhivago, President Kennedy and footballer Pele. The first two are official titles, the latter a journalistic identification. All could also have the, but the first two would then cease to be titles and would probably need their first capital letter to be lower case, as in the last. Dropping the in the last case is just stylistic (see 77. Apposition, #2, and 166. Appropriacy in Professional English).

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8. After “one of” and “the whole of”

One of usually precedes a noun that is plural and specific (see the introduction to 263. Uses of “One” and “Ones”). If this noun is presented as new information for the addressee, it will probably follow various (e.g. one of various people who...). Otherwise, the or other “definite” word (those, these, their etc.) is necessary. Using the or these suggests “mentioned or visible nearby”, while those suggests “within general knowledge” (see 234. Adjective and Pronoun Uses of “that”).

The whole of the is possible before numerous nouns (e.g. the whole of the day, the whole of the discussions, the whole of the information, the whole of the Pacific). A general alternative, virtually the same meaning-wise, is the whole without of the (see 308. Complexities of “Whole”, #2). A notable kind of noun, however, that allows neither of these possibilities is proper nouns that do not normally have the, such as Paris, China or September. They can only follow the whole of.

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9. In Idiomatic Contrasts

English has various expressions whose meaning changes in a quite unexpected way with the addition of the. For example, in first place, meaning “achieving a higher rank than all others” acquires after addition of the before first the rather different meaning of “the first thing to be said” (see 157. Tricky Word Contrasts 5, #4). This and other examples are summarised in the following table (relevant posts shown in footnotes):

¹ 221. Multi-Word Prepositions

² 48. Tricky Word Contrasts 1, #11

³ 229. Metaphorical Prepositions

⁴ 81. Tricky Word Contrasts 2, #2

⁵ 211. General Words for People

⁶ 114. Tricky Word Contrasts 3, #8

⁷ 261. Words with Complicated Grammar 3, #4