Article Question

MHanlon · Dec 12, 2006

It's easiest to explain by example:

He hit pavement.
He hit the pavement.

To me the first sentence sounds better, but the second sentence is certainly not wrong. Is there a particular rule for using "the" in this siutation? Is the first sentence wrong?

If I change the object to something else: He hit door. It sounds horrible.

Can anybody clear this up for me?

karenmary · Dec 12, 2006

MHanlon said:
It's easiest to explain by example:

He hit pavement.
He hit the pavement.

Can anybody clear this up for me?

I don't know for sure but I think each connotes a different meaning! The first sentence depicts a man repeatedly hitting pavement (over and over again). The second depicts a man taking off across 'the pavement that is before him.'

Does that make sense?

KML

MHanlon · Dec 12, 2006

I understand what you're saying, but I don't know if it's true in this case. I understand "the" as an indication that there is only one important pavement. In my door example. If he hit the door, that door is important or stands alone. If he hit a door, there are other doors he could have hit. With certain words that theory doesn't hold. I couldn't say he hit a pavement. So would removing the article in this case make the pavement seem as if there was more pavement he could have hit?

askeladd · Dec 12, 2006

The way I look at it, in the first sentence "pavement" describes a category - in this case, a particular substance (as opposed to water, dirt, paint, whatever). The second case, "the pavement," denotes a specific patch of asphalt (or whatever the paving substance is) at a specific physical location.

HTH.

KODB · Dec 12, 2006

"He hit pavement" sounds slangy to me. Depending on the context, I think it works really well. Like a runner sliding face-first into second base is sometimes said to eat dirt.

"He hit the pavement" is way more straightforward, and technically more correct, but I like losing the article sometimes.

Ol' Fashioned Girl · Dec 12, 2006

'Hitting the pavement' is slang, too, which might be coloring your perception of it. I tend to take the first use literally - as someone digging might hit rock, asphalt, pavement, water, oil...

'Hitting the pavement' says, to me, something like 'hitting the ground running', or 'hitting pavement, looking for a job', etc.

FennelGiraffe · Dec 12, 2006

Another vote for different meanings:

He hit pavement. = He hit some pavement. OR What he hit was pavement, not grass.

He hit the pavement. = He hit that pavement, right there.

Although, I can also see it as a group marker. Which version is "correct" might depend on who's saying it.

brer · Dec 13, 2006

(Disclaimer: I haven't a clue as to what I'm talking about.)

I vote for ... it sometimes could depend on context.

e.g.,
Billy-boy, the hero of our story, flipped the innocent bystander--a middle aged woman--over his back and onto the cement sidewalk. The bystander spawned helpless on her back, groaning in confusion. Billy-boy smiled sadistically, and knelt beside the bystander's head. He tightened a hand into a fist, and began a roundhouse punch.
He hit pavement.
"Ow, ow," he said. "Not fair. Innocent bystanders shouldn't move. Don't you know how to play the game?"

In the above example, I think I could have used either version. But the version I actually used seems to be just right for that context. In my opinion, that is.

Also, one or both versions probably also (Did I just echo "also"? Oh, oh. I did a no-no for a writer.) have slang meanings also (A triple-echo.) as other posters have pointed out.

Sometimes I shouldn't be near a keyboard.
Sometimes I shouldn't be above water ...
(What ya mean, Sometimes? )

Jamesaritchie · Dec 13, 2006

pavement

Think of water. He was drilling, and he hit water. He dove, and hit the water.

Leaving out the article does give the sentence a different grammatical meaning, even if what the writer is trying to say is still understood by the reader.

I can't quite imagine a time when leaving out the article would make sense, unless it's some form of "He fell out of a plane and hit pavement."

Or "The Jeep tore through the brush, emerged into a clearing, and unexpectedly hit pavement."

But if it's a particular pavement, a known pavement, or an expected pavement, the article is always necessary.

MHanlon · Dec 13, 2006

Thanks for the responses. The reason I asked is because I had someone reading a story of mine and they were putting in the articles. One of them being, hit pavement. I forget how exactly I phrased it, but here is a crappy version:
As she leaned forward, her hand slipped, and her face hit pavement.

I couldn't say the person was wrong for putting them in, because it's not, but I couldn't really defend my reasoning either. The end result is I reworked the sentences.

Jamesaritchie · Dec 13, 2006

article

MHanlon said:
Thanks for the responses. The reason I asked is because I had someone reading a story of mine and they were putting in the articles. One of them being, hit pavement. I forget how exactly I phrased it, but here is a crappy version:
As she leaned forward, her hand slipped, and her face hit pavement.

I couldn't say the person was wrong for putting them in, because it's not, but I couldn't really defend my reasoning either. The end result is I reworked the sentences.

I don't think you can defend leaving out the article in this case. At least not very well. That sentence does need the article. It just doesn't make sense to me without it. I'd definitely stop reading at this point, if only long enough to try to figure out what the writer meant. Stopping is not a good thing.

MHanlon · Dec 13, 2006

Jamesaritchie said:
I don't think you can defend leaving out the article in this case. At least not very well. That sentence does need the article. It just doesn't make sense to me without it. I'd definitely stop reading at this point, if only long enough to try to figure out what the writer meant. Stopping is not a good thing.

Thanks for the response. It makes more sense when you put it in the perspective of the reader.

Judg · Dec 13, 2006

brer said:
The bystander spawned helpless on her back, groaning in confusion.

Uh, no. I don't know what the lady was doing on the sidewalk, but it definitely wasn't spawning.

Leaving the article out is fine because it's an established expression to say "he hit something-or-other" when you are referring to the general reality.

Having no article at all in English usually means you are referring to an abstraction, ("Truth is" as opposed to "The truth is") but in certain expressions you can eliminate the article even if it's not an abstraction, subtly changing the meaning.

"He was in hospital" does not equal "He was in the hospital" for instance. In both cases the hospital is a concrete reality, not an abstraction. You can get away with it because it's an established expression, or an idiom.

MHanlon · Dec 13, 2006

Judg said:
Uh, no. I don't know what the lady was doing on the sidewalk, but it definitely wasn't spawning.

Leaving the article out is fine because it's an established expression to say "he hit something-or-other" when you are referring to the general reality.

Having no article at all in English usually means you are referring to an abstraction, ("Truth is" as opposed to "The truth is") but in certain expressions you can eliminate the article even if it's not an abstraction, subtly changing the meaning.

"He was in hospital" does not equal "He was in the hospital" for instance. In both cases the hospital is a concrete reality, not an abstraction. You can get away with it because it's an established expression, or an idiom.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

Article Question

MHanlon

karenmary

MHanlon

askeladd

Polyglot

KODB

Ol' Fashioned Girl

Hand? What hand?

FennelGiraffe

It's green they say

brer

Jamesaritchie

MHanlon

Jamesaritchie

MHanlon

Judg

DISENCHANTED coming soon

MHanlon