Definite article used for several instances and within context

Question

Hello everybody. Please, help me with a dilemma.

1) Here is a set of sentences by a person talking about random movies:

"Ninja Tuttles" - This is the movie I like.. And, "Big Bang" - this is the movie I like also.

Are several "the" appropriate here?

I heard that "the" means that there is only one thing, so I can't write it twice with another noun of the same kind. As I already mentioned "the movie I like", there can't be any other such movie and therefore another "the movie I like" can't be used, I should write "a/an" instead. Is it a correct point of view? I think someone told me that we can use "the" several times in such cases, but I am not very sure about the whole thing...

2) If some people are talking about the movies from a particular list, and then one of them says:

"Juice" - This is the movie I like".

will it mean that this is the only movie he likes at all, or it will mean just the movie within the list he likes?

I will appreciate your help a lot, this all is so raveled in my head...

GPY · Accepted Answer

You would normally use "this is the movie I like" when considering a list of movies, not when talking about all movies generally. It is a way of singling out a special preference from that list, but it does not definitely mean that you dislike all the others. Nevertheless, because it is singling out one choice, it seems a bit odd or contradictory to say "this is the movie I like" about one movie and then straight away "this is also the movie I like" about another.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

??????? ???????"Ninja Tuttles" - This is the movie I like.. And, "Big Bang" - this is the movie I like also.Are several "the" appropriate here?

It's not what a native speaker would say. These are natural:

"Ninja Turtles" - This is the movie I like best.. And, "Big Bang" - this is another movie I like ~~also~~.

"Ninja Tuttles" - This is a movie I like.. And, "Big Bang" - this is a movie I like also.
"Ninja Tuttles" - This is the movie I like best.. And, "Big Bang" - I like this one too.

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you. Please, let me clarify that I got it right.

if there is more than one e-book reader I use to read books, it will be correct to say when I talk about any of them:

"This is an e-book reader I use to read books"?

Saying "This is the e-book reader I use" would suggest that I use only that one most of the time? And then mentioning the second reader with "the" would be contradictive?

CalifJim · Answer

??????? ???????Saying "This is the e-book reader I use" would suggest that I use only that one most of the time?

Not exactly. Saying that suggests that it's the only e-book reader you use. More than "suggests". It's actually what it means.

Saying "This is the e-book reader that I use most of the time" means it's the e-book reader that you use most of the time!

??????? ???????mentioning the second reader with "the" would be ~~contradictive~~ contradictory?

Correct.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thanks a lot)) You say that "This is the e-book reader I use" means that it is the only one. But what if I discuss a list of several e-readers with a person, and one of them is mine, and I say "This is the e-book reader I use", it will mean that this is the only one I use within the list, and there may be others I use as well. But for the person in this case it might be ambiguous whether I mean "the only one at all" or "one of them".

Am I correct? Thanks.

CalifJim · Answer

??????? ???????But what if I discuss a list of several e-readers with a person, and one of them is mine, and I say "This is the e-book reader I use"

In this case, the real-world situation is communicating part of your message for you. You are saying, in effect, "This is the e-book reader on this list that I use". If you see more than one on the list, you can point to just one and say, "This is one of the e-book readers (on this list) that I use". Or you can point to all those you use that are on the list and say, "These are the e-book readers (on this list) that I use".

??????? ???????it will mean that this is the only one I use within the list, and there may be others I use as well.

To be clear, if there were others, you would say, "This is one of the e-book readers (on the list) that I use".

??????? ???????in this case it might be ambiguous whether I mean "the only one at all" or "one of them".

If you say, "the e-book reader that I use", you're giving your listener the impression that you only use one. As stated above, you need "one of" if you want to be clear. For brevity you might say, "This is the e-book reader (on the list) that I use" when in fact it's only one of the ones you use, but the others you use are not on the list. I'm not saying you'd be lying, but you might inadvertently be misleading the listener.
____________

I'm not sure I've answered the exact question you had, but I think that's because we don't normally think in such great detail about the finer logical implications of each use of "the". We're ordinary speakers, not lawyers or philosophers!

CJ

AlpheccaStars · Answer

??????? ???????If some people are talking about the movies from a particular list, and then one of them says:

You can use "the" with every movie on the list, as long as you specify their uniqueness in some way.

eg. Suppose you have a pile of DVDs with movies, and you want to select one to put in the DVD player and watch with a friend.

This one is the movie I saw last Thursday. The next one is the movie that was horribly panned by the critics in 2012. The third one is the movie at the top of my "to see" list, The fourth one is the movie I promised to watch with you about a month ago. ...

If the one you are considering has no unique property, then use "a".
The fifth one is a movie that I've seen before. (I have seen many movies, so there are many in this category.)

Anonymous · Answer

CJ, I think you answered my question

Thanks! Your idea is that when we are talking about a given list of things and say "this is the thing that..." , it can mean that we convey (and both meanings are grammatically correct because of context):
1) "the only within the list that...", so other things can be somewhere else.
Or
2)"the only thing at all that...".

But for the listener to make it clear which of these meanings we designate, we use "one of".

Did I catch it?

CalifJim · Answer

??????? ???????Did I catch it?

You got it.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thanks a lot! <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Definite article used for several instances and within context

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