How far can you stretch it?

Question

Hi,I have a variable noun that is "opportunity."OK, let's put an adjective which is "photo" and make a phrase "photo opportunity. Then, I will make a sentence with that phrase like this:Photo opportunity is hard to come by to an aspiring model.Here, no article is needed, I think, to modify the phrase "Photo opportunity" because it is still referring or being referred generally to its uncountable part of its variable nature.Then, I will  put another adjective which is "great" in front of the phrase, then at that moment, I have just create a need for an article, which in this case is "a", I think.My question now is "What is the dividing line or determining factor that causes the need for an article to arise (come about)?" How can a person like me use to decide for himself to make that judgment correctly?To recap:photo opportunity   (no "a")a great photo opportunity (yes "a")My question: Why is that and what caused it?

Inchoateknowledge · Accepted Answer

"Photo opportunity is hard to come by to an aspiring model." ???
photo is a noun, and photo opportunity is a noun-noun compound word.

A photo opportunity is hard ... You need the article here

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you.

Is the following original not correct?

Photo opportunity is hard to come by to an aspiring model.

And it has to be like you said with "a"?

A photo opportunity is hard to come by to an aspiring model.

BUT, I still don't know why my original sentence isn't correct without the article when I meant to say it generally.

If I take away the adjectival noun 'photo', it will look like this.

Opportunity is hard to come by to an aspiring model.

Crudely as it looks, would you say it is grammatically correct?

If correct, why adding an adjectival?? noun make it necessary for the sentence to have the article "a"?

Does anybody know where I got lost and what I need to know? Help.

Believer · Answer

Thank you.

Let me try a different one. I think the phrase 'photo opportunity' was a bad choice to use for the purpose of posing a question.

How about this? good opportunity

I think I will use it to ask a question.

As stated before, 'opportunity' is a variable noun, I think, and you can use it generally like this:

Opportunity comes, opportunity goes.

NOW, let me put a descriptive adjective like 'good' in a sentence and "Voila??" you need the article 'a' there in that sentence for it to be correct. I think you can say that the addition of that descriptive adjective made that difference.

A good oppotunity is hard to come by nowadays.

1) My question to you now is "Would you say this is a typical phenomenon with most of variable nouns in the English language -- if a person add an adjective, particularly that of a descriptive kind, the variable turns to its countable nature?

Let me ask you another question with this. I am going to use the phrase 'a good knowledge'. The word 'knowledge' is a variable noun, I think. Doing the same thing I did with 'opporunity', I will make up some sentences to ask another question.

Knowledge is good.

If I add the adjective 'good' to the 'knowledge', normally you have to say something more to make a good sentence like this, I think:

A good knowledge in history is a prerequisite for this job.

As before, the addition of the adjective 'good' triggered the need to have "a" in the sentence but this time, it required an additional modfying phrase,which is "in history'.

2) Now my second question is "Is there some sort of guidelines that can help me to decide on the issue of whether this variable noun needs more to fully converted like 'a good knowledge in history' or that variable noun needs not add any modifying phrase to succeed in its conversion? Similar two variable nouns but one only needs 'good' but the other needs to have both 'good' and 'in history'. Any guidelines for that?

How far can you stretch it?

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