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Reegis Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

Articles: She had to step over the puddle to avoid wetting her new shoes.

Hello,

today I have encountered (out of context) the following sentence:

She had to step over the puddle to avoid wetting her new shoes.

As I am learning articles, the puddle attracted my attention. Can you think of an example when we can use it? For me, a puddle is a puddle and why to say that somebody stepped over the puddle? One reason might be that this puddle was mentioned earlier, but it doesn't look like a character in any story...
  

Top answer

Reegis One reason might be that this puddle was mentioned earlier, That seems the likely reason. "wetting her new shoes" doesn't feel very natural to me. Most people would say "getting her new shoes wet".

— GPY

  • Reegis One reason might be that this puddle was mentioned earlier, That seems the likely reason.
  • "wetting her new shoes" doesn't feel very natural to me.
  • Most people would say "getting her new shoes wet".
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3 Answers
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ReegisOne reason might be that this puddle was mentioned earlier,
That seems the likely reason.

"wetting her new shoes" doesn't feel very natural to me. Most people would say "getting her new shoes wet".
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It is strange, there are many sentences (similar like the one above) in my program that contain definite articles. In the majority of them I cannot think of any other explanation than this one, but still they are out of context, so it is hard to say. Perhaps one day they were in context and just were taken out of it.

Thanks for help!
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Often we use "the" when the reader or listener already knows which one we are talking about, and "a" when they don't. If this context is lost then the reason for the article choice is lost too.
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