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03:44
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Q: Why many abstract nouns get an article while it's taught that abstract nouns shouldn't get it?

Manifestation_PeculiarityI was told that abstract nouns don't get articles. (You can see here for example). But I found many abstract nouns that get articles, such as: "of a truth", "of a size", "of a lifetime", "of a certain age", "a love" and more. What is the explanation for that?

04:26
Thank you for the explanation, Colleen!
 
2 hours later…
06:52
Word of the day: lawyer up
 
2 hours later…
08:37
What does it mean: O-leg fit?
 
4 hours later…
12:55
@CowperKettle I have no idea... I must be old and unfashionable...
I found that it refers to a curved inseam: answers.com/Q/What_are_o_leg_jeans
1
Q: Why is “Tuesday” placed in the sentence without being preceded by the preposition “on”?

Bavyan YaldoTHE SOURCE: Wall Street Journal In a village on their heavily militarized border, North and South Korean officials opened talks Tuesday, ostensibly over... I think the preposition “on” should come before?

Though I have no objection with dropping "on" there, but at the same time I have preference with preposition "on" before "Tuesday" in this case.
And I thought it is more common to insert "on" there in such sentences until I found this comment :
The day of the week can be used absolutely in the singular to mean "on the Tuesday of the current or coming week" as context requires. He's having his wisdom teeth out Tuesday. He has his wisdom teeth out Tuesday. He had his wisdom teeth out Tuesday. He was having his wisdom teeth out Tuesday.Tᴚoɯɐuo 2 days ago
@Man_From_India That is similar to what I was going to say - My car broke down Monday, so I had to Uber to work this week.
I could put "on" in there but since I'm talking about the nearest Monday I don't need to
I'm not sure exactly why grammatically :) It also works for the future - I will pick up my car Thursday.
@ColleenV Hmm is it really has to do with nearness?
@Man_From_India I don't know if that's accurate - it's more about knowing which Monday
13:11
Because as far as I can see in corpus most of the cases tend to have "on" in such cases. A few spoken instance do have "on" dropped. But I really haven't looked into all those sentences from corpus regarding their semantic difference. Actually it didn't occur to me that there can be such difference at least to some extent based on "on" there. I need to look into those sentences again more attentively :-)
I wouldn't want to leave the on off in "I play tennis on Mondays" but I wouldn't think it awful if someone left it off. I'll have to think about it.
I think for me to be comfortable with it, I would only drop the on when I was talking about "last Monday" or "this coming Monday"
Interesting
hehe right.
Maybe it's because "Monday I went to work. Tuesday I stayed home." is OK, so I don't have a problem inverting the word order "I went to work Monday."
@ColleenV That is the reason I initially gave to myself :-)
13:32
> The natural use shown in He normally eats fish on Fridays varies occas. with the type He normally eats fish Fridays, i.e. with omission of on, esp. in AmE. Only an American, I think, would say I saw you Friday (cf. Noriega ... said Monday the U.S. Southern Command in Panama ... threatens the Central American nation —USA Today, 1988), but there is a great deal of variation in such contexts in rapid speech.
This is from Fowler's Moder English Usage under the entry FRIDAY.
This book didn't mention any slight difference in meaning. But that doesn't mean there should not be any difference. Yet, reading that part from the book seems like there is no difference.
 
1 hour later…
14:42
@ColleenV Thank you!
15:10
> I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women,
And pity lovers rather more than seamen.

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