Articles, steaks and hamburgers ))

Question

A qoutation from the book "Strangers on a Train" by Patricia Highsmith:

The smell of charcoal-broiled meat cheered him. Bruno insisted so desperately on paying the check that Guy gave it up. Bruno had a big mushroom-covered steak. Guy had hamburger.

"What're you building in Metcalf?"

"Nothing," Guy said. "My mother lives there."

Why the steak has an article, but the hamburger does not have?

Deadrat · Accepted Answer

Just English idiom. For a general description of the meal, you don't use the article. For a particular portion of the food, you do. When Highsmith says "Guy had hamburger." that's all you know. His might have been "mushroom-covered" as well, or he might have had two hamburgers. If Highsmith had wanted to be specific she could have written, "Guy had a hamburger."

Great book, by the way.

MrGuedes · Answer

kpripperWhy does the steak have an article, but the hamburger does not ~~have~~?

I don't see any reason for that. I think that the word "hamburger" should, indeed, be preceded by the article "a", since it is a countable noun.

If indeed that is what is written, it might have been an editing or printing error, or something like that.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

kpripperGuy had hamburger.

As ground beef, hamburger is a non-count noun.
As a sandwich, a hamburger is a meat patty between two pieces of bread, with trimmings such as onion, mustard, pickles and / or relish.

Kpripper · Answer

I think, it was not a ground beef, it was exactly the hamburger with french fries, etc. After all, passengers on the train do not eat raw meat. Am I right ?

Deadrat · Answer

I think the point is that when you describe your meal by the ingredient, you use a non-countable noun: the ingredient is delivered in some quantity, measurable perhaps, but not countable. (And ground beef is still ground beef, cooked or raw.) When you describe your meal as a particular item on your plate, then you use the indefinite article because items are countable. Note that you may also use the definite article with an ingredient, which means the dish with that ingredient as described on the menu.

To summarize, suppose someone asked you what you ate at the restaurant.

If you said, "I had lobster." that would mean that you had some dish containing lobster. Perhaps it was a lobster tail or perhaps it was chopped lobster in a salad on a bun, what we call in the eastern US, a lobster roll. We can't tell, and if the restaurant offered many types of lobster dinners, we couldn't tell even if we had read the menu.

If you said, "I had a lobster." that would mean that the waiter placed the entire boiled crustacean in front of you, and offered you a bib and drawn butter.

If you said, "I had the lobster." that would mean that you ordered the one lobster dish on the menu or the one lobster dish the restaurant was famous for, say lobster thermidor. We would know what dish was served if we read the menu.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

kpripperAfter all, passengers on the train do not eat raw meat.

Ground beef can be cooked. The cooked patty can be large or small, as prepared by the kitchen.
If it is a sandwich, then we say "a hamburger." If it is just the meat patty, then we say "hamburger."
The same is true for other items:

We had pizza (unspecified amount).
We had a pizza. (one whole pie)

We had soup. (unspecified amount)
We had a bowl of soup. (specific quantity)

We had meat loaf. (unspecified amount)
We had a slice of meat loaf / pizza / cake... (one portion).

We had beer.
We had a beer. (one glass)

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