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Raj Doug Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

Desert with article

I hope I won't get in trouble for so many questions about articles...last one for today, I promise.

Las Vegas a manmade miracle in the middle of the desert.
Las Vegas a manmade miracle in the middle of a desert.

I prefer "the desert", but I think either the or a is fine. (No desert has been introduced up to that sentence). Did I get it?
  

Top answer

With 'the desert', we see 'deser't as a generalised type of landscape, rather like 'the country', the mountains', 'the seaside'. We don't think of a single area of land. With 'a desert', we see an area of land.

— Fivejedjon

  • With 'the desert', we see 'deser't as a generalised type of landscape, rather like 'the country', the mountains', 'the seaside'.
  • We don't think of a single area of land.
  • With 'a desert', we see an area of land.
  • We know that this is just one desert and that there are others.
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5 Answers
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With 'the desert', we see 'deser't as a generalised type of landscape, rather like 'the country', the mountains', 'the seaside'. We don't think of a single area of land.

With 'a desert', we see an area of land. We know that this is just one desert and that there are others.
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Raj DougI prefer "the desert"
Bad guess. Emotion: sad

Las Vegas is in a desert. It
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Thank you both, for your support!
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CalifJimBad guess.
CalifJim, you're not saying that "in the desert" is wrong in that context, right? You are only saying it's wrong to prefer "the" and that you prefer "a". Yes?
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Raj Doug, I don't mean to add to the noise, but here it is: in English, individual/single environmental/geographic terms are often commingled to serve as one whole term. Fivejedjon uses some good examples. The sea is especially used that way. I have always wanted to live by the sea. There are many seas, but "sea" here is used as a single geographic area that subsumes all seas. Indeed, it wo
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