The key pass which I get at reception at North Gate, an office tower in Warsaw, on my way to teaching an English class says: “Return of the card at the exit.” I can’t make up my mind which part of it grates more: the noun ‘return’ or the double use of ‘the’.
One would expect to see: “Return card at exit,” but that expectation is not out of respect for the English grammar with regard to the use of articles, nor out of a sense of confusion arising from a declarative rather than imperative use of ‘return’. In “Return of the card at the exit” the articles are used correctly but unnecessarily, while the choice of a noun instead of a verb may merely reflect the building manager’s quirky notion of telling me about it rather than asking me to do it.
There is something very compelling about missing off the articles in ephemeral messages of this kind, a practice conveying efficiency or a sense of urgency perhaps, so when they are inserted where they properly belong, the messages don’t grab us with anything like the force they have minus articles. As we can usually point at the things in our immediate surroundings (ostensive function of language) which the message refers to, some liberties are allowed. I am as yet mystified though why my Avast virus protection software plays a recorded message with a reassuring pop-up window saying: ‘Virus database has been updated,’ and the accompanying text runs: ‘A new version of virus database has been installed.’
Neil Armstrong is in yet another category with his memorable line: ‘That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.’ I don’t know who is right – those who claim he didn’t say the ‘a’ or those who claim he did. The latest explanation is that apparently the indefinite article ‘a’ was lost in transmission static. Said a cynic to a sceptic: that shows you how important articles are! One way or another, from the logical point of view, both versions of this proposition are contradictions.
Consider this: if there is a man for whom the step taken on that momentous day was not ‘big’, then it is not true that it was a big step for every man. Alternatively, if Armstrong did miss off the article, thus equating ‘man’ with ‘mankind’, then he effectively said that it was not a big step for man and it was a big step for man, again committing a contradiction.
Fortunately, natural language does not need to follow logic all the time, otherwise the sentence: ‘Joe got drunk and lost his way home’ would be equivalent to ‘Joe lost his way home and got drunk,’ seeing that conjunction is commutative. We understand Armstrong’s line despite the grammar and the logic, rather than because of it.
One would expect to see: “Return card at exit,” but that expectation is not out of respect for the English grammar with regard to the use of articles, nor out of a sense of confusion arising from a declarative rather than imperative use of ‘return’. In “Return of the card at the exit” the articles are used correctly but unnecessarily, while the choice of a noun instead of a verb may merely reflect the building manager’s quirky notion of telling me about it rather than asking me to do it.
There is something very compelling about missing off the articles in ephemeral messages of this kind, a practice conveying efficiency or a sense of urgency perhaps, so when they are inserted where they properly belong, the messages don’t grab us with anything like the force they have minus articles. As we can usually point at the things in our immediate surroundings (ostensive function of language) which the message refers to, some liberties are allowed. I am as yet mystified though why my Avast virus protection software plays a recorded message with a reassuring pop-up window saying: ‘Virus database has been updated,’ and the accompanying text runs: ‘A new version of virus database has been installed.’
Neil Armstrong is in yet another category with his memorable line: ‘That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.’ I don’t know who is right – those who claim he didn’t say the ‘a’ or those who claim he did. The latest explanation is that apparently the indefinite article ‘a’ was lost in transmission static. Said a cynic to a sceptic: that shows you how important articles are! One way or another, from the logical point of view, both versions of this proposition are contradictions.
Consider this: if there is a man for whom the step taken on that momentous day was not ‘big’, then it is not true that it was a big step for every man. Alternatively, if Armstrong did miss off the article, thus equating ‘man’ with ‘mankind’, then he effectively said that it was not a big step for man and it was a big step for man, again committing a contradiction.
Fortunately, natural language does not need to follow logic all the time, otherwise the sentence: ‘Joe got drunk and lost his way home’ would be equivalent to ‘Joe lost his way home and got drunk,’ seeing that conjunction is commutative. We understand Armstrong’s line despite the grammar and the logic, rather than because of it.
I confess I find something beguiling in Polish article abuse and sentence disorder. It somehow manages to add a sense of foreboding and suspense to otherwise innocent sentences. "Return of the card at the exit…" what? What will happen if I return the card at the exit?
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