Articles

II. We generally use articles (a, an and the) before common nouns. But in some cases articles are not used before them. Read the following sentences from the play 'The Dear Departed' and notice the underlined common nouns.

1. He went out soon after breakfast to pay his insurance.

2. And when we'd finished dinner I thought I'd take up a bit of something on a tray.

In the above sentences the underlined common nouns 'breakfast and dinner' refer to the names of meals and food. In primary and general sense we don't use articles before the words that refer to the names of meals and food ie. breakfast, dinner, lunch, supper, pizza, fish fry and omelette.

The following are the cases where 'the' is not used in the primary sense. (In

a special or particular sense, 'the' is used before them.)

a.Before proper nouns (Rama, Sita, Mohan, Ramya, India, Ongole, Gandhi Nagar etc.)

b) Before abstract nouns and material nouns (honesty, beauty, poetry, iron, gold etc.)

c) Before the words 'man, woman, society, heaven and hell'.

d) Before the names of diseases, games and sports, seasons, days, months. (fever, cricket, summer, April etc.)

e) Before the words 'church, jail, prison, school, college, market, hospital, office, university, temple, mosque, bank, home and nursing home.

f) Before plural nouns (books, people, villages, pens etc.)

g) Before the words referring to relations. (mother, father, brother, sister, aunt etc.)

h) Before the names of languages. (Telugu, English, Hindi, Tamil, French etc.)

i.In certain expressions or phrases ( catch fire, send word, set sail, set foot, at home, in hand, in debt, by car, at night, on demand, on earth, on foot, etc.)

Write the following paragraphs, inserting a, an, and the where needed.

A. Horse knows when he is going to race. How does he know? His breakfast was scanty. (He is angry about that.) He does not have saddle on his back. He is being led, not ridden, to grandstand. He is led under grandstand into unusual, special stall. Horse is nervous. Sometimes he does not know what to do when starting gate flies open and

track is before him. If he does not begin to run instantly, other horses are already ahead of him. During race, when he sees another horse just ahead of him, he will try to pass him. Sometimes jockey holds him back to save his energy for last stretch. Eventually horse gets to run as fast as he can. Exercise boy, watching owner's favorite jockey riding horse he has exercised day after day, says nothing. Secretly, he is planning for day when he will be jockey himself, and his horse will be first to cross finish line.

B. I have horse of my own. I call him Pretty Girl. She is intelligent animal, but she is not thoroughbred horse. I could never enter her in race, even if I wanted to. But I do not want to. She is companion, for my own pleasure. I took her swimming day or two ago.