English Language & Usage Asked on March 7, 2021
How can the same noun take/miss a "the" in the following sentences.
(A) The Food and Drug Administration intends to authorize emergency
use of the vaccine on Friday.(B) The country is expected to authorize the emergency use of the
vaccine.(C) Two runoff elections in Georgia will determine control of the
Senate.(D) The Georgia Republican is facing a runoff election that could
determine the control of the Senate.(E) Production of renewable diesel is up 7 percent this year.
(F) Energy companies are increasing the production of renewable
diesel.
I wonder how to use or omit the definite article "the" in these instances. Is any semantic difference produced by using the definite article?
At first glance, I have a vague idea that (B) and (C) are more appropriate than (A) and (D), respectively; although, I cannot explain why.
I believe that "the" should be omitted in (E), as it is actually, while I am unsure about the reasoning behind the use of "the" in front of the noun "production" in (F).
All of the sentences are from a major U.S. newspaper, so they are, apparently, grammatical. Yet, I suspect some subtle difference in meaning.
Explain the logic behind the use of "the."
The zero-marking used by newspapers in such contexts as yours or in any formal written texts does not fit any entry in the rules given by ordinary grammars. In Wikipedia I found this entry that is not really related to your contexts, but might give us a hint to why the "zero-article" was used in some of your sentences:
The zero article is also used in instructions and manuals. In such cases, the references in the text are all definite, and thus no distinction between definite and indefinite has to be made.
I would concentrate on the sentence no distinction between definite and indefinite has to be made. It is true, sometimes the issue discussed by a newspaper article is so widely known, that no distinction between definite and indefinite is necessary.
However, it is clear from your sentences, that the omission of the article has not occurred because of that necessarily. I believe this is more a matter of style in writing: newspapers are known to drop articles especially in their headlines for more impact.
See for example
Cabinet backs PM over no-deal Brexit and Iceberg threat to seals and penguins from the BBC news
or
Facebook's advertising integrity chief leaves company and Romney urges sweeping vaccine plan... from Reuters.US
I will not quote such occurrences in the body of the articles, since you have provided plenty yourself. While researching for this answer, I came across another EL&U answer that coincides with my intuition. Omission of the article definitely make the sentences sound more formal, almost axiomatic, if I may say so.
If you look at (B), (C) and (E), you will see that they do sound more like headlines, as if claiming more authority for the information they provide. Where the article is used, the sentence is intended to be more neutral so that the reader's attention be not distracted by that particular piece of information, but look at the global meaning that transpires from a whole paragraph let's say.
Answered by fev on March 7, 2021
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