Treat you to a dinner
1. If you are walking home from work, the boss picks you up in his big car and drives you to your door. Another time, he treats you to a dinner in an expensive restaurant. Sometimes he takes you home for the weekend and buys you presents.
2. She treated her brother to dinner and a movie.
There is an "a" in front of the word "dinner" in the first sentence, while the second sentence doesn't have an "a".
What's the difference between them?
Top answer
The "a" in the first one is optional. It would work without it. The second one is a fixed expression which doesn't normally take an "a", and which would suggest that both the dinner and the movie happened during the same evening.
- The "a" in the first one is optional.
- It would work without it.
- The second one is a fixed expression which doesn't normally take an "a", and which would suggest that both the dinner and the movie happened during the same evening.
- If you said "a dinner and a movie" it might suggest that they occurred on different evenings.
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The "a" in the first one is optional. It would work without it.
The second one is a fixed expression which doesn't normally take an "a", and which would suggest that both the dinner and the movie happened during the same evening. If you said "a dinner and a movie" it might suggest that they occurred on different evenings.
01 describes a situation that can have untoward implications if the boss is male and the "you" is female. There is an uneasiness in everything in the passage. "Dinner," with no "a," would imply a friendly, innocuous situation. "A dinner," however, sounds overly formal and hints at the uncomfortable nature of the situation.
2 describes a completely innocuous situation. Hence, the
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