Exercise 2. In the sentences below, only one of the underlined alternatives is appropriate. Cross out the one that is wrong.

1. Julia soon discovered that he did not much like spending money, and when they ate a meal together, or on Sunday/ a Sunday went for a small excursion, she took care to pay her share of the expenses. (W.S. Maugham)

2. I should have been born in Middle Ages / the Middle Ages when faith was a matter of course. (W.S. Maugham)

3. A slightly grumpy midnight coupling on rainy north London Tuesday/ a rainy north London Tuesday last June. (M. Gayle)

4. Everything’s amazing – living on your own without your parents is amazing, even having washing-up in the sink that backdates to Bronze Age/ the Bronze Age is amazing. (M. Gayle)

5. It was rather like Saturday/ a Saturday when one was a child. No lessons, no prep. (D. du Maurier)

6. The public never came on a Tuesday/ Tuesday. (D. du Maurier)

7. “What are you doing here on Sunday/ a Sunday?” (J.H. Chase)

8. It was on Sunday/ a Sunday that I saw a pike a yard long asleep in shallow water by the bank and nearly got him with a stone. (G. Orwell)

9. It was just a question of waiting now. Waiting until the Tuesday/ Tuesday. (D. du Maurier)

10. It’s following Tuesday/ the following Tuesday, early morning. (M. Gayle)

11. Isabel was married to Gray Maturin early in June/ the June of the year after the termination of her engagement to Larry. (W.S. Maugham)

12. What are you doing after lunch on Tuesday/ a Tuesday?

13. I did a lot of work in Hamburg in the eighties/ eighties.

Exercise 3. In the following sentences insert articles where necessary and comment on their functions.

1. It seemed __ entire summer is doomed to be spent watching the cricket with the curtains drawn. (H. Fielding)

2. I was not in Paris in __ spring when, sooner than they had planned, Mrs Bradley and Isabel arrived to stay with Elliot. (W.S. Maugham)

3. He stayed on in Paris during __ summer and worked without a break till __ autumn was well advanced. (W.S. Maugham)

4. Then __ spring came, late in that flat, dismal part of the country, cold and rainy still; but sometimes __ fine warm day made it hard to leave the world above ground…. (W.S. Maugham)

5. By __ autumn the animals were tired but happy. (G. Orwell)

6. __ sea would look slate, cold still from __ long winter, and from __ terrace you would hear the ripple of __ coming tide washing in __ little bay. (D. du Maurier)

7. I happened to be spending a day in Paris in __ spring on my way back to Cap Ferrat and had asked Elliot to lunch with me. We met in the Ritz bar, as deserted as __ playwright after __ first night of __ unsuccessful play. (W.S. Maugham)

8. I wondered if __ autumn would come upon us two months before her time. (D. du Maurier)

9. It was __ bitter winter. (G. Orwell)

10. In __ early spring we went after squirrels with squailers, and later on we went bird nesting. (G. Orwell)

11. It used to make __ summer for all of us in this part of the world. (D. du Maurier)

12. It was possible to foresee that __ coming winter would be a hard one. (G. Orwell)

13. We shall be at Manderley all __ summer, you must come and see us. (D. du Maurier)

14. But he hadn’t seen her now since 1915, in __ spring when he joined up. (D.H. Lawrence)

15. Throughout __ spring and summer they worked a sixty-hour week. (G. Orwell)

16. By__ late summer a sufficient of stone was accumulated, and then the building began, under the superintendence of the pigs. (G. Orwell)

17. She was considering Bill; for, though she wouldn’t admit it, __ winter at school in New York and a prom at Yale had turned her eyes North. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

18. At the first bars of the ‘Painted Doll’, to which he and Caroline had moved through so much happiness and despair __ previous summer, he crossed to Caroline’s table and asked her to dance. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

19. __ summer was gone and now __ Indian summer. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

20. She opened a door on the left of the hall as we went in. It would be the drawing-room, not used much in __ summer. (D. du Maurier)

21. __ summer is only the unfulfilled promise of __ spring, a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

22. This is only the second season that the hotel’s been open in__ summer. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

23. In __ spring of 1917, when Doctor Richard Diver first arrived in Zurich, he was twenty-six years old, __ fine age for a man, indeed __ very acme of bachelorhood. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

24. They had that house on Long Island in __ summer. (D. du Maurier)

25. He returned to Zurich in __ spring of 1919 discharged. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

26. __ winter had set in, and the year was rolling round to the anniversary of their first meeting. (K. Saunders)

27. In front of the Carleton Hotel, its windows as stubbornly blank to __ summer as so many cellar doors, a car passed them and Tommy Barban was in it. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

28. Bruno was destined to look back on his stay in London, in __ early spring of 1944, as the most purely happy time of his life. (K. Saunders)

29. __ summer approached. (K. Saunders)

30. Before the war, and especially before the Boer War, it was __ summer all the year round. (G. Orwell)

‘Past’, ‘present’, and ‘future’

Ø ‘Past’, ‘present’, and ‘future’ generally have the definite article:

· ...the dangers in thinking only of the present.

· ...plans for the future.

· ...more people than I had ever been responsible for in the past.

Ø But ‘present’ and ‘future’ can be used after ‘at’ and ‘in’ respectively with a zero article:

· ...since there is no certain answer at present.

· Try to remember it in future.

Ø In American English ‘in the future’ is used rather than ‘in future’.

Ø It is possible to use the indefinite article when talking about the life of one particular person:

· He has a future.

· … a man with a past

Exercise 4. In the following sentences insert articles where necessary and comment on their functions.

1. Where does the difference between __ past and __ future come from? The laws of science do not distinguish between __ past and __ future. Yet there is a big difference between __ past and __ future in ordinary life. (Th. Harris)

2. I like men who have __ future and women who have __ past. (O. Wilde)

3. However glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at__ present a penniless young man without __ past, and any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

4. I guessed that in __ past he had acquired a good deal of experience in dealing with Middle Western businessmen. (W.S. Maugham)

5. There was no despair like that of suffering a broken heart, destroyed dreams, the complete desolation of __ once promising future. (P. Jordan)

6. __ future was unknown. (D. du Maurier)

7. I feel you have __ future. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

8. I’m rather pagan at__ present. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

9. In the company of such as these he felt that he lived in __ spacious and gallant past. (W.S. Maugham)

10. That was __ past. There was __ present to worry about now. (S. Sheldon)

11. From the experience of __ stormy past. (W.S. Maugham)

12. It brought me to reality, and the facing of __ immediate future. (D. du Maurier)

13. She had gone to Baltimore to live – but since then she had developed __ past. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

14. Amory decided with a vague sentimentality that for __ present, at any rate, he would not sell the house. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

15. “You are all well,” he said. “Try to forget __ past; don’t overdo things for a year or so. Go back to America and be a debutante and fall in love – and be happy.” (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

16. One hurries through, even though there’s time; __ past, the continent, is behind; __ future is the glowing mouth in the side of the ship; the dim, turbulent alley is too confusedly __ present. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

17. Every time she tried calmly to evaluate her situation and make a plan, her mind was overwhelmed by images of __ entire future with Feramo. (H. Fielding)

18. And then I tell her I want us to make __ new future – and what better way than with a baby? (M. Gayle)

19. Bruno snapped back into __ present and smiled at her, his magnified eyes glistening. (K. Saunders)

20. __ past and __ present lived together here. (K. Saunders)

21. It was not, she understood, an engagement ring; more a pledge for __ future. And there could be no future, until Octavius and his family addressed the complications of __ past. (K. Saunders)

22. “And had you thought about __ future?”

He shrugged impatiently. “No point, till the war’s over. I don’t even know that I have __ future.” (K. Saunders)

23. “I don’t see why we have to pretend __ past didn’t happen, just because we turned respectable a couple of hours ago.” (K. Saunders)

Unique Items

Ø There are several things which are said to be uniquein that only one example of them (or one set of them) exists. Here are some words which belong to this group:

the devil the north pole the solar system the universe

the earth the planets the south pole the weather

the equator the pope the stars the world

the moon the sky the sun

Ø In some ways unique nouns are like proper nouns which also typically refer to only one item or set of items. And there is a tendency to use a capital letter with some of them (especially ‘devil’, ‘earth’, ‘equator’, ‘north pole’, ‘south pole’ and ‘pope’), as with proper nouns.

· ...a human being possessed by the Devil.

· ...on the surface of the Earth.

Ø However, it is not true to say that all these nouns only occur with the definite article. You can use most of them (but not ‘earth’ or ‘weather’) with the indefinite article or as plurals. If you talk of ‘a sun’ or ‘a moon’, you may be talking about another sun or moon elsewhere in the universe, or you may be trying to give a particular impression of ours:

· ...under a still-warm October sun.

· The moons, too, rapidly grew larger.

Ø ‘Earth’ is very often used with a zero article, especially after ‘on’.

· ...the smallest nation on earth.

Exercise 1. In the following sentences insert articles where necessary and comment on their functions.

1. He must have looked up at __ unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

2. __ universe is duly in order, everything in its place. (W. Whitman)

3. The clouds left us at Exeter, they rolled away behind us, leaving __ great blue sky above our heads and __ white road in front of us. (D. du Maurier)

4. I was glad to see __ sun, for in superstitious fashion I looked upon rain as __ omen of ill-will, and __ leaden skies of London had made me silent. (D. du Maurier)

5. __ earth and its resources belong of right to its people. (G. Pinchot)

6. The houses were white shells in a rounded grotto, pricked here and there by __ great orange sun. (D. du Maurier)

7. Out in their car under __ harvest moon he talked brokenly. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

8. The only fence against __ world is a thorough knowledge of it. (J. Locke)

9. Above my head __ pale sun tried to penetrate __ heavy sky. (D. du Maurier)

10. The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by __ Devil. (H.L. Mencken)

11. It was too early for __ moon. __ sky I could see through the open doors was inky black with only a few stars. I was in a hell of panic as I forced myself out from under the car. (J.H. Chase)

12. And if there’s __ heaven above, he’ll be there, and will lie up against me so I can sleep. (D.H. Lawrence)

13. __ Montana sunset lay between two mountains like a gigantic bruise from which dark arteries spread themselves over __ poisoned sky. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

14. They lingered for a moment just below the stoop, watching __ moon that seemed full of snow float out of the distance where the lake lay. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

15. Every solar system has __ sun.

16. __ early moon had drenched the arches with __ pale blue, and weaving over __ night, in and out of the gossamer rifts of moon, swept a song, a song with more than a hint of sadness, infinitely transient infinitely regretful. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

17. Under his feet __ thick, iron-stunned skylight turned yellow. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

18. He was a Georgian, with the peculiarly regular, even stenciled ideas of Southerners who are educated in __ North. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

19. __ white sun, chivied of outline by __ white sky, boomed over __ windless day. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

20. The wet salt breeze filled his hair with moisture, the rim of __ moon seared __ sky and made the curtained dim and ghostly. He fell asleep. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

21. Afterward he walked through the dull ache of __ setting sun when even the clouds seemed bleeding and at twilight he came to a graveyard. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

22. The moon floated in __ cloudless sky, shedding its light on the sampans and the small roaring boats that still moved on the river. (J.H. Chase)

23. I’ve had enough experience to know that there is __ God and that there is __ Devil. But the way to tame __ Devil is not to go down there to church and listen to what a sinful mean fool he is. No, love __ Devil like you do Jesus…

24. At the station he saw __ star he knew, and __ cold moon bright over Chesapeake Bay; he heard the rasping wheels of buckboards turning, the lovely fatuous voices, the sound of sluggish primeval rivers flowing softly under soft Indian names. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

25. She swam at the villa, under __ warm Mediterranean sun, and at night lay in her bed listening to the mournful sound of the singing rocks, as the wind gently blew through them. (S. Sheldon)

26. With the storm came __ dark, frightening sky and savage filaments of lightning and world-splitting thunder, while ragged, destroying clouds fled along past the hotel. (F. Sc. Fitzgerald)

27. We don’t know how old __ universe is.

28. __ equator runs round the middle of __ earth.

29. The swaying he had noticed in her walk was in her playing too, and the Nocturne she had chosen, and the soft darkness of her eyes, the light on her hair, as of moonlight from __ golden moon.

30. Wherever man and woman are present, __ devil is the third. (H. Fielding)

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1113