sea/lake

Question

Hello,1. The map shows a boat on the sea.2. The map shows a boat on a lake. I want to know why "the" has been used before the word "sea" and "a" before lake?One more question  Can I use "in  the sea" or "in  a lake"  instead of "on the sea" and "on a lake"?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

sea is being used generically to mean all the water in the world's large bodies of water. There is only one such mass of water, so it must be the sea.
This is quite similar to the expression the air. There is a lot of dust floating in the air.

In contrast, lake is being used as a countable noun. The boat is on one of many possible examples of lakes.

(in the sea and in a lake are possible, yes. But a boat wouldn't be in the sea or in a lake unless it had sunk!)

CJ

Hanuman_2000 · Answer

Hello,(Sir,Mr. CJ)

I got one sentence in a book.

1. There are 35 duck in a lake.

I want to know Why In not On has beeen used here.

CalifJim · Answer

I want to know why, too!

For some reason I think we have a preference for saying on (the lake) for man-made objects like boats, which are designed to float on the surface of water. These are objects that have come to some unfortunate end (have sunk) if they are in (the lake).

We saw a canoe, a motor boat, and an yacht on the lake.

On the other hand, I think we prefer to say in (the lake) for people or birds or animals that can swim.

The children swam in the lake all afternoon.
The ducks paddled around in the lake, looking for things to eat.
They were surprised to see little otter pups playing in the lake.

That said, there are times when people choose on (the lake) to describe something rather static, like floating.

There are a lot of ducks on the lake this morning.
Brown leaves were floating on the lake.

CJ

It's 35 ducks, by the way.

Hanuman_2000 · Answer

Hello,

Thanks a lot. Your comments are always helpful to me.

Sorry for typo.

sea/lake

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