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Snvplayer Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Shouldn't there be "the" before individuals here?

We got an effect in individuals with this specific gene signature for the general placebo.

Shouldn't there be "the" before individuals because they refer to the participants in a study?
  

Top answer

Generally we do not use the before the names of individuals. We just say I saw Shahina on my way back home yesterday. But you can use the when you particularize an individual.

  • Generally we do not use the before the names of individuals.
  • We just say I saw Shahina on my way back home yesterday.
  • But you can use the when you particularize an individual.
  • The Winston Churchill who wrote novels was an American.
  • I don't mean the Shahina that you were in love with.
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6 Answers
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Generally we do not use the before the names of individuals. We just say I saw Shahina on my way back home yesterday.
But you can use the when you particularize an individual.
The Winston Churchill who wrote novels was an American.
I don't mean the Shahina that you were in love with.
You can also use the when an individual name is us
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O.ABOOTTYthe Nehru's means Nehru and his family.
the Nehrus
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"We got an effect in individuals with this specific gene signature for the general placebo."

Thank you for your reply, but the sentence in question does not have any name...I wanted to know why there wasn't an article "the" before the plural noun "individuals" because "individuals" refer to the specific ones who participated in the study and has the genetic makeup.
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An effect appeared for the general placebo in individuals with this specific gene signature.

'Got' is inappropriate in such formal text,l and the final modifying phrase seemed misplaced.

There is no definite article before 'individuals' because the noun can be considered undefined until after its post-modification ('with this...signature'). Although '
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Thank you for the detailed explanation. This was actually a quote from a scientist from the study that I was reading about on BBC.com.

Following your question, what is it "the" and not "an" before individual in this case? This is from the same article.

"The team then used blood samples to look at what variant "THE" individual had of the catechol-O-methyltranferase (COMT) gene."
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snvplayer"The team then used blood samples to look at what variant "THE" individual had of the catechol-O-methyltranferase (COMT) gene."
'The' here means 'each'.

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