I never realised that before, but that makes sense, though your original sentence reads just fine to me either way.
On a related note, there is one other noun – “Universe” – which some have argued should never be used with the definite or indefinite article. Discuss!
Interesting question! ‘Simile’ and ‘metaphor’ are examples of nouns that can be used with or without the indefinite article. Their use without the indefinite article implies the category rather than a specific example, e.g. “The overuse of simile in his work was rather tiresome.” Discuss 🙂
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March 13, 2014 at 9:24 pm
Like, that’s great… footnote – D
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July 23, 2013 at 10:05 am
Done.
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July 23, 2013 at 9:10 am
I never realised that before, but that makes sense, though your original sentence reads just fine to me either way.
On a related note, there is one other noun – “Universe” – which some have argued should never be used with the definite or indefinite article. Discuss!
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July 23, 2013 at 9:02 am
Interesting question! ‘Simile’ and ‘metaphor’ are examples of nouns that can be used with or without the indefinite article. Their use without the indefinite article implies the category rather than a specific example, e.g. “The overuse of simile in his work was rather tiresome.” Discuss 🙂
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July 22, 2013 at 9:28 am
Note to self: adjust CSS on footnote markers
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July 22, 2013 at 9:27 am
“an example of a simile” surely? 😉
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July 22, 2013 at 9:21 am
“Face like a slapped arse” is an example of simile.
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October 12, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Let’s try again, bold italic, underline
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October 12, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Leaving a comment here on paragraph 1 to test out the edit comment function. Which seems to work.
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October 12, 2012 at 2:48 pm
That should appear in the group activity stream with formatting intact
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