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ESL forum >
Grammar and Linguistics > Could anybody help me about this please....?
Could anybody help me about this please....?
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jocel
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Could anybody help me about this please....?
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Dear colleague,
One of my students ask me how to use the word "COLD" with article a. But now, I am lost how to explain.
(If I were right, COLD is uncountable. So I do not use articel a) But why is it that there are some sentences in which they use article a with cold?
For example:
I cantch a cold easily. or He has a bad cold.
But there are sentences which don �t have article a.
For example:
I hope I don �t catch cold. or You might catch cold.
Could anybody help me please? I badly need your help.
Thanks for your help in advance!
Hugs,
jocelyn |
2 Aug 2011
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seansarto
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I usually don �t wander into this area..but these are my thoughts off the top of my head. "Cold" can be a sensation (uncountable - "to catch cold" "you will become cold" "It is cold")
or it can be a sickness related to that sensation "a cold" (countable - i.e. "I have a cold" "He caught a cold") |
2 Aug 2011
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millmo
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My explanation is that "a cold" is an article. You catch a cold. When people say "I hope I don �t catch cold" they are actually shortening the grammatically correct sentence of " I hope I don �t catch a cold". Native speakers of all languages grammatically shorten sentences, and I believe this to be just one example. |
2 Aug 2011
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PhilipR
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Your premise, that cold is uncountable, is wrong.
�Cold � is a countable noun and, as such, usually used with an article - or even in its plural form.
E.g. I can �t come today because I have a cold. My wife has caught a bad cold. Doctors still haven �t found a cure for the common cold. I caught half a dozen colds last winter. The cold is the most commonly occurring illness in the entire world, with more than 1 billion colds per year reported in the United States alone.
PS: Catch a cold = catch cold (less common: take cold or contract a cold) |
2 Aug 2011
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seansarto
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Thinking more of this last night ....Phillip is right about "cold" defined as a sickness is countable in modern usage...thus the definite article..But "cold" as a condition or sensation is not countable...you can only use the indefinite article "the"...if you are referring to it �s adjective form as in "left out in the cold"....That means the temperature outside is very low....(and in that idiom, it means a something, most likely a person, was excluded from something)...but you cannot use the definite article a cold to describe a similar circumstance. If you said, "There was a cold outside", it might work with poetic license, but it would be archaic and most likely be misunderstood as meaning a "sickness". I think you would have to examine the etymology of the word to some extent to see the evolution of it �s usage...It makes sense, to me. that first a word to describe the sensation or condition of the "cold" had to be derived before a word describing an illness which had symptoms of such sensations needed definition. I could be wrong.
So, in my opinion, the word "cold" probably originates from it �s adjective form and later was utilized as a noun when it could be used as a less formal means of indicating "a flu" and that is when the use of the definite article became necessitated. |
3 Aug 2011
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jocel
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Thanks a lot dear colleague! It �s a big help.
Thanks to you PhilipR. I appreaciate your help. Thanks for the correction too! 
Now everything is clear.
Take care everyone. See you around. |
3 Aug 2011
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