Which sentences are right?

Question

Hi,Please check them.What is "Hamburger"?What is a "hamburger"?What is the "hamburger"?What is "Lasagna"?What is a "Lasagna"?What is the "Lasagna"?

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

What is a hamburger?

What is lasagna?

No capital letters. The quotes are really optional.

Believer · Answer

Thank you.

For a definitional use purpose, i think, one would normally use an indefinite article for countable nouns.

I check the Collins/Cobuild Advanced Learner's English Dictionary and it gave this definition of a hamburger:

A hamburger is minced meat which has been shaped into a flat circle.

Great. My next question is "Can I make the article definite?" (Did I write the undelined sentence correctly?)

The hamburger is minced meat which has been shaped into a flat circle.

Would the serve the purpose right and the purpose being "making a definitional statement"?

I also check the same dictionary for the definition of "Lasagne" and it went on like this:

Lasagne is a food dish that consists of ...

OK, but can it be definite or indefinite like this.

A lasagne is a food dish that consists of ...

The lasagne is a food dish that consists of ..

Hamburger is a countable noun and lasagne is a variable noun, I think.

BarbaraPA · Answer

I guess because you can hold a single hamburger as a serving, but not "a lasagna." You can have SOME lasagna, or a serving of lasagna, but "a lasagna" means an entire pan of it. If you're having one serving, you'd say "I'm having a hamburger" but "I'm having lasagna."

If someone one asks what you are serving for dinner, you say "I'm making hamburgers" (no article) but you can say "I'm making a lasagna" (with the article, although you can also leave it out).

Anyway, you can say "The hamburger is..." if you are desribing "the idea of the hamburger" to someone who is unfamiliar with it. "The hamburger was invented... etc." But to use either "a" or "the" with lasagna in the same way just sounds odd to me.

I need someone who has a better way to describe mass nouns to help explain why this is.

Which sentences are right?

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