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definite article or no definite article

 
 
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 07:54 am
I know definite article can be omitted in a headline, but in the example below, I feel it is awkward to delete the "the":

Context:
Professor Yu Mingde: The Urgent Affairs of China's Pharmaceutical Industry
 
View Profile panzade
 
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 07:55 am
you're starting to "feel" the language ori. Good call.
  1  
Reply Sat 10 Oct, 2009 05:36 pm
Thanks.

Who would like to explain the question ?
View Profile panzade
 
  1  
Reply Sun 11 Oct, 2009 06:45 pm
I did. I think your "guess" is correct: the headline needs a THE
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Reply Sun 11 Oct, 2009 11:49 pm
Thank you Pan.
Let us find enough English native speakers to support us.
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Reply Mon 12 Oct, 2009 08:47 pm
Wow, no one wants to weigh in?
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Reply Mon 12 Oct, 2009 08:53 pm
oristarA wrote:

Wow, no one wants to weigh in?


Another fine idiomatic expression. You're getting to be so fluent, you sound like a native speaker. Congratulations.
View Profile panzade
 
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Reply Mon 12 Oct, 2009 09:05 pm
It IS amazing

ori, don't you trust me?
Your hunch was right...the THE belongs in the headline.
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Reply Mon 12 Oct, 2009 11:11 pm
I trust you Pan.
I am nitpicking, however. I want to be an English professor. Smile
View Profile panzade
 
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Reply Tue 13 Oct, 2009 07:06 am
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/eduwonkette/upload/2008/03/20prof600.1a.jpg

make sure you have a supply of bow-ties on hand...
0 Replies
 
View Profile ehBeth
 
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Reply Tue 13 Oct, 2009 01:59 pm
oristarA wrote:
Let us find enough English native speakers to support us.


Do you think "English native speakers" have a better understanding of the language than people who have it as a second/third/fourth/fifth tongue?
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Reply Tue 13 Oct, 2009 08:31 pm
Not always.
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View Profile JTT
 
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Reply Tue 13 Oct, 2009 08:32 pm
Quote:
Do you think "English native speakers" have a better understanding of the language than people who have it as a second/third/fourth/fifth tongue?


The Longman Grammar of Written and Spoken English relates how native speakers have quite a poor understanding of how the language works and those that were brought up in the Strunk & White age, that's pretty much everyone alive today, is even worse.

Some seem to be able to set aside the old falsehoods they were taught in school, all too many can't.

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View Profile JTT
 
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Reply Tue 13 Oct, 2009 08:35 pm
Quote:
I know the definite article can be omitted in a headline, but in the example below, I feel it is awkward to delete the "the":


It's not awkward simply because it is a headline, Ori.
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Reply Tue 13 Oct, 2009 08:48 pm
Thanks.
So to have it or have not, both ways of expression work?
0 Replies
 
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Reply Tue 13 Oct, 2009 08:49 pm
What you prefer, JTT?
Do you prefer to omit the definite article?
View Profile JTT
 
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Reply Tue 13 Oct, 2009 08:53 pm
I don't really have a preference, Ori, as I don't write too many headlines. It's simply that, for headlines, many required grammatical elements, if the same was a normal sentence, are left out.
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