definite article or no definite article

Forums: English, Grammar
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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

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Type: Question • Score: 0 • Views: 814 • Replies: 16

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@oristarA,

you're starting to "feel" the language ori. Good call.

1 Reply

@panzade,

Thanks.

Who would like to explain the question ?

1 Reply

@oristarA,

I did. I think your "guess" is correct: the headline needs a THE

1 Reply

@panzade,

Thank you Pan.
Let us find enough English native speakers to support us.

1 Reply

Wow, no one wants to weigh in?

1 Reply

@oristarA,

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.

1 Reply

@Merry Andrew,

It IS amazing

ori, don't you trust me?
Your hunch was right...the THE belongs in the headline.

1 Reply

@panzade,

I trust you Pan.
I am nitpicking, however. I want to be an English professor. Smile

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@oristarA,

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/eduwonkette/upload/2008/03/20prof600.1a.jpg

make sure you have a supply of bow-ties on hand...

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@oristarA,

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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@ehBeth,

Not always.

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@ehBeth,

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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@oristarA,

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.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Thanks.
So to have it or have not, both ways of expression work?

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What you prefer, JTT?
Do you prefer to omit the definite article?

1 Reply

@oristarA,

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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definite article or no definite article

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