Noncount

Question

Salam,Can we add 'the' before noncount noun? He was being led ... as a lamb to the slaughter.Slaughter is nouncount but is preceded by the.

Vorpar · Accepted Answer

Yes.

Avangi · Answer

I'm not sure I can properly explain this.

"The slaughter" is one of those uncountables like "the sky" and "the ocean."

"He will go to the gallows for sure!" We don't necessarily have a particular gallows in mind.

"I'm going to send him to the boneyard." (I'm going to kill him.)

I agree with Vorpar - Yes, you can. I guess that's all you really wanted to know!

"As a lamb to slaughter" = "as a lamb to the slaughter."
I guess my examples seldom appear without the "the."

The grass is all going to seed. Maybe you can't insert "the" in this case because it's an idiom,
although it seems to me that each word behaves according to its dictionary meaning.

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousCan we add 'the' before noncount noun?

Yes. It's either the or nothing at all. the is possible with both count and non-count nouns.

Here are the combinations. Those in red are wrong.

Count: car, house, animal

*car, house, animal

a car, a house, an animal << a or an

the car, the house, the animal << the

cars, houses, animals << no article

*a cars, a houses, an animals

the cars, the houses, the animals << the

Non-count: equipment, information, furniture (No plurals.)

equipment, information, furniture << no article

*an equipment, an information, a furniture
the equipment, the information, the furniture <<the

*equipments, informations, furnitures
*an equipments, an informations, a furnitures

*the equipments, the informations, the furnitures

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thanks to all those who replied. It helped a lot.

Noncount

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