Subj : No article
To   : Alexander Koryagin
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Sun Sep 07 2025 23:52:32

Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 AK>>> ... Johnson and Bell had a good supper awaiting them. But before
 AK>>> they sat down to table, the doctor said in a voice of triumph,
 AK>>> as he pointed to his two companions,
 AK>> ----- The end of the citation -----

 AK>> Can you say a formal excuse why "table" in the last sentence is
 AK>> used without any article?

 AH> My OXFORD CANADIAN DICTIONARY lists "at table" but not "to table".

 AH> THE FREE DICTIONARY tells me how to translate "at table " &
 AH> to "table" into Spanish, but offers no explanation of the sort you
 AH> apparently want.

 AK>  Indeed, after a bit of thinking I feel "sat down at table"
 AK>  sounds better.


          While I don't feel strongly about either I see I should probably have included the examples offered by the latter dictionary:

              They were at table when we arrived, and (with a bit of rewording) they sat down to table... just as the translator of Verne's work evidently said in this case... but either may sound dated or "esp. UK" to some folks.



 AK>  Probably most of books are translated into English by
 AK>  people who are not Englishmen. They convey the contents
 AK>  well, but sometimes use prepositions as at home. ;-)


          Does the Gutenberg edition you're using provide any information about who the translator was or about when & where s/he lived?

          According to the Vancouver Public Library's summary of this book, the captain was British & the edition they offer was published by Oxford University Press.  While I know nothing about the translator, apart from his name, I trust the Oxford University Press to know how the English language is (or was) spoken in their own country at the time of publication.  VPL users are also invited to share their perception of the library's offerings, and I see that in one review of another novel by Jules Verne the writer spoke highly of a Penguin edition in which the translator was named & made a point of saying he much preferred it to an alternative in which the translator was not named.

           Many people nowadays try to dummify or modernize or sanitize various classics in English, but when they do the original flavour is often lost.  :-))




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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