Subj : "the" o "a"
To   : alexander koryagin
From : Dallas Hinton
Date : Fri Mar 30 2018 15:08:57

Hi alexander -- on Mar 30 2018 at 21:21, you wrote:

ak> -----Beginning of the citation-----
ak> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/world/europe/russia-expels-diplom
ak> ats.html

[...]

ak> Why "_a_ confrontation" not "the confrontation"?

Firstly, this is (again) garbage writing. You can't escalate a confrontation; a 
confrontation either is or is not. Same thing with "reached a crescendo" (a 
phrase I often see). A crescendo is an increase in volume over time and yes you 
can reach the beginning of a crescendo in music, but as the journalists (hack, 
spit) use it they seem to think a crescendo is a peak; a point in time.

This type of abysmal writing is a hot button of mine, and I'm going to suggest 
that all here should be extremely careful of using journalistic writing for any 
sort of exemplar of correct usage. Nine times out of ten such writing is crap.

To answer your specific question, Alexander, using "a" suggests that this is 
one of many confrontations while using "the" tends to suggest there's only one. 
It's not a strong argument, and really either could be used.



Cheers... Dallas

--- timEd/NT 1.30+
 * Origin: The BandMaster, Vancouver, CANADA (1:153/7715)

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