Comment by brigandish
4 years ago
I'll finish up on the objections here as I don't wish to continue the conversation they come from but do wish to clear them up.
> Native speakers say “the store” even when there’s no expectation that a) I know which store they mean,
The other person doesn't need to know, it's acting like a specific place has been introduced without it being introduced because to specifically introduce it is wasteful.
> or b) I go there myself or will in the future. ie, the standard you use for deciding whether “the” would work in the conservatory example.
Everyone except the terminal and imminent misfortune will go shopping to the kind of shop "the" will be put in front of. If you were a musician and said "when I went to the conservatory" I wouldn't blink either.
> Even under your new standard, you should say that “the conservatory” is fine as long as the listener “goes/has gone to conservatories”.
It may well be, and it still fits with what I described, and expected shared experience that is assumed to need no further introduction for the rest of what is about to be told.
> Finally, in case it matters: yes, I have had native speakers (my parents) say “the store” even when I (also a native speaker) didn’t go shopping at all, being too young to do it.
You have been or will go shopping in your life, and you know or will come to know what they are referring to. Older people will often use language to youngsters that youngsters do not fully understand yet. It helps the youngsters come to understand it.
> (This is why oh-so-clever rhetorical questions should be used with caution.)
Because they point out the stupidity of a response and may invite further stupidity in response? Yes, that is a downside.
>>Native speakers say “the store” even when there’s no expectation that a) I know which store they mean,
>The other person doesn't need to know, it's acting like a specific place has been introduced without it being introduced because to specifically introduce it is wasteful.
That was in response to the reply where you said:
>I say "I went to the store" or "I went to the pub" it's somewhere we both go or experience or have an expectation of going or experiencing, no further introduction needed. If we both go to the same conservatory then "the conservatory" would work,
In other words, I only brought that up, because you were saying it falls under a case where both people know which one it refers to. If you weren't using that defense, you shouldn't have replied here.
>>Even under your new standard, you should say that “the conservatory” is fine as long as the listener “goes/has gone to conservatories”.
>It may well be, and it still fits with what I described, and expected shared experience that is assumed to need no further introduction for the rest of what is about to be told.
Great, but there you're definitely diverging from native speaker usage (as illustrated from the original comment [1]) -- native speakers do not otherwise use "the" for such cases, and would agree you shouldn't say "the conservatory" in that case just because the listener has also gone to a conservatory.
>You have been or will go shopping in your life, and you know or will come to know what they are referring to. Older people will often use language to youngsters that youngsters do not fully understand yet. It helps the youngsters come to understand it.
True, but irrelevant to the issue at at hand. Here you were claiming that it's fine because it's expected that the listener has already shopped at that store. If you want to switch to "well, they're going to model how other people would treat the store's definiteness" that is a different reason for making the noun definite here, which would still make this case different and break the usual pattern of when a noun is made definite.
>>(This is why oh-so-clever rhetorical questions should be used with caution.)
>Because they point out the stupidity of a response and may invite further stupidity in response? Yes, that is a downside.
Any stupidity it pointed out was on your own side -- you were absolutely incredulous at the idea that there might be a native speaker that never goes shopping. Haha! Point for you! What a dumb argument! Now everyone will see the light because you have pointed out a clear absurdity in the other person's position!
Except ... such people (non-shoppers) do exist. Which means, not only did you make a demonstrably false assumption, you were calling the other person stupid despite being correct, and adding one more layer of correction that has to be resolved before the discussion can continue.
Yeah -- that counts as a reason to be cautious of that technique.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32619524