"[a] combing sea"

Question

Hello all,I stumbled across this passage in Captain Boomer's tale in Moby Dick:"To escape his terrible flailings, I seized hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off..."I do not understand why the undefinite article was used in "a combing sea". It was the very sea his boat was on, so I'd say it must be uncountable — denoting the whole spread of water from horison to horison.Similarly, we say:I went for a walk, but the weather was cold, the wind chilling, the air damp and the clouds pregnant with heavy rain...Thanks in advance,Anton

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,
I stumbled across this passage in Captain Boomer's tale in Moby :

"To escape his terrible flailings, I seized hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off..."

I do not understand why the undefinite article was used in "a combing sea". It was the very sea his boat was on, so I'd say it must be uncountable — denoting the whole spread of water from horison to horison.

Similarly, we say:
I went for a walk, but the weather was cold, the wind chilling, the air damp and the clouds pregnant with heavy rain...

Such wording shows us how the writer is thinking.
eg a combing sea. This tells us that he is thinking that there are various types of sea, eg a combing sea, eg a calm sea, eg a choppy sea.

eg the sea was combing. This tells us he is just thinking about the sea in general, and then feels like telling us that it was combing.

The word 'combing' is not used much with this meaning today.

Clive

Ant_222 · Answer

Hello, Clive, and thank you for the reply.

Will the definite article be grammarically correct with the original wording: "But the combing sea dashed me off", maybe imparting a somewhat different tint to the meaning?

Anton

Clive · Answer

Hi,

Yes.

Clive

CalifJim · Answer

Ant_222I do not understand why the indefinite article was used in "a combing sea". It was the very sea his boat was on, so I'd say it must be uncountable — denoting the whole spread of water from horizon to horizon.

In these cases, often literary, the shows what the author intends to be taken as a permanent, inherent, intrinsic characteristic of the noun; by contrast, a( n )shows a temporary, transitory, unusual characteristic of the noun.

On our whaling expedition we enjoyed the blue sea.

On our whaling expedition we encountered a rough sea.
(The sea had become rough.)

The farmer had worked the fertile soil of his fields for many years.

Assessing the flood damage, he walked on a drenched and soggy soil.
(The soil had become drenched and soggy.)

Everyone thought Fred was the perfect father.
When Jake wrecked the car, an angry father greeted him at the door.
(Jake's father had become angry.)

CJ

Ant_222 · Answer

Thank you, Clive and CJ.

So it is again the same dichotomy of essential vs. tremporary properties that CJ told me about before. I suspect there must be some common term for it in Latin or even Greek, because, as I vaguely remember, Aristotle was discussing it...

It is also very interesting how a language must reflect both the objective reality and the speaker's absolutely subjective point of view on it.

In this connection, here's another sentence from Melville in which he uses no article at all:
"Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea..."

How would you interpret this? Erudite by nature, but not essential enough as to justify the use of the definite article?

Anton

CalifJim · Answer

Ant_222 Erudite by nature, but not essential enough as to justify the use of the definite article?

Works for me! LOL. As a native speaker, I'm not at all used to dissecting my language down to this level of detail, so I'm somewhat inclined to say that some of these examples are simply a matter of an author's arbitrary choice.

an erudite would not work, of course. I don't think erudition can be temporary. So only the or the zero article are possible.

Maybe Melville didn't feel comfortable putting the together with a proper noun. A proper noun already has the quality of definiteness just by nature. Still, it's worth nothing that modern authors seem to be less squeamish about such combinations.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

Ant_222as I vaguely remember, Aristotle was discussing it...

Yes, and Plato as well as I recall. You're referring to "essence and accident".

(No, I don't know the Greek words for these concepts!)

CJ

Ant_222 · Answer

CalifJimMaybe Melville didn't feel comfortable putting the together with a proper noun. A proper noun already has the quality of definiteness just by nature.

Seems true. The few other instances of this pattern that I have met in Melville were without an article as well.

CalifJimYes, and Plato as well as I recall. You're referring to "essence and accident".

Thanks for reminding the term, CJ. Now we have come to the very root — Aristotelian Physics, in which the concept has been given a name and described for the first time (not sure about Plato). A surprising turn of discussion it is

Anton

Ant_222 · Answer

Hello again,

This aspect of article usage was quite new to me and made me hesitate about usages I had had no problems with before. For example, this passage from Arthur Machen's "The Great *** Pan":

The man went out into the bitter night.

I find similar to the original sentence from Melville. In light of the abovementioned article semantics, I now think that "a" could have been used instead of "the" before "night" without significant change of meaning. Is it so?

The man went out into a bitter night.

(i.e.: into a night that was bitter)

Of course, the reader is already aware of the presence of the night — just like he is about the sea in the original sentence.

Thanks in advance,

Anton

CalifJim · Answer

Ant_222I now think that "a" could have been used instead of "the" before "night" without significant change of meaning. Is it so?

It depends where you set the bar for "significant".

He went out into a bitter night suggests that he discovered that it was bitter at the moment he went out - or that it had just become bitter, maybe. New information.

He went out into the bitter night suggests that he knew already (or at least the author and/or reader did) that the night was bitter. Not new information.

CJ

"[a] combing sea"

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