When the Missing Article Seems Less Than Genuine

Several months ago, I ran into an acquaintance at the bar of the Crocodile Cafe in Old Pasadena. She greeted me warmly, took a sip of chardonnay, and asked if I wanted to join her at table. I quickly scanned the room to see if Jeeves was standing nearby, waiting to escort me to my chair.

“Better yet,” I responded to her kind yet verbally pretentious offer, “let’s just sit at booth.”

At that moment, I experienced an epiphany of sorts. I began noticing how people, English-speaking American people, drop the article “the” in unfamiliar places. Friends and neighbors were now going to market, vacationing on property and rushing to doctor.

At first, being new to Los Angeles, I pretended this was just big-city talk. Then, after becoming not so new to L.A., I decided it was glam talk, a lexical maneuver to inflate one’s own sense of self-worth. According to language experts, sometimes people do want to sound as though they come from a speech community other than their own--maybe from another part of the country or another part of the world. Unfortunately, when they try to adopt part of an unfamiliar dialect structure, they sound odd at best, pretentious at worst.

Often, people are not trying to show off, they’re just trying to blend in, says Naomi Baron, a professor of linguistics at American University in Washington, D.C., and author of “Alphabet to E-mail: How Written English Evolved and Where It’s Heading” (Routledge, 2000). “They may not even be aware that they’re doing it.”

In all fairness to my friend, she did live in London for a couple of years, and according to experts, it’s easy to pick up elements of a foreign language structure while living abroad, immersed in a different culture. So maybe it’s time to cut Madonna, with her faux-Brit talk, a little slack. Maybe she’s just trying to be like all the other working mums on the block. My friend, on the other hand, is stateside now, and instead of bringing home a souvenir T-shirt, she apparently opted for an affected speech pattern.

Linguists estimate that 50 or 60 word constructions are used by British and/or American English-speaking people in which the article “the” is appropriately omitted. We go to school; they study at university. We go on vacation; they go on holiday.

“Leaving out the article gives that extra piece of information about what a person may be doing in a particular place,” according to Laurel Stvan, clinical assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Utah. Stvan’s doctoral dissertation was about the omission of articles in the English language.

For example, if a Brit says, “My brother is in hospital,” you’re likely to imagine a man dressed in a drafty gown lying in a hospital bed. If an American says, “My brother is in prison,” you’re likely to conjure up images of a man with tattoos on his arm sporting an orange jumpsuit. If an American says, “My brother is in the prison,” you might be envisioning some clean-cut young man teaching high school classes to GED applicants.

Unfortunately, when Americans try to imitate British speech, they can make fools of themselves. “We begin dropping an article before a noun where a British speaker would not,” says Baron, and “before long, we lose track of what is correct English and what is not.”

Several Sundays ago my rector, a man of God, of the God, announced from the pulpit he would be traveling out of country soon. In country is military lingo taken from administrative paperwork used during the Vietnam War, and referred to a soldier’s tour in Vietnam. The Peace Corps uses a similar construction when referring to a volunteer’s in-country training or service. But out of country seems to be a new phrase no matter which side of the Atlantic you’re standing on, and either Father George got a little confused or a little creative with the English language. By the time he returns, though, who knows? Maybe out of country will have caught on.

Language changes all the time, adds Baron, and what sounds awkward one day may eventually become the norm. For the record, at this moment in time, those born and bred under the Union Jack would never say going to doctor, visiting on or off property or traveling out of country. In fact, they eat their meals at the table just like we do, according to Londoner Christy Kirkpatrick, an editorial assistant for Routledge U.K. “At table really isn’t used much in conversation, not even in formal situations,” says Kirkpatrick.

For two years, I was convinced that public radio host Linda Othenin-Gerard of KPCC’s “Talk of the City” was an intellectual snob and a BBC wannabe because she uses the phrase in studio, as in “Amy Tan joins me in studio today.”

“I’ve been working in radio for 10 years now,” explains Othenin-Gerard, “and I’ve always heard it expressed like that. It’s simply a way of emphasizing that my guest will be physically in the studio and not participating via the telephone.” (“By the way,” she adds, “I would never say at table.”)

She’s not pretentious after all, just professional. In fact, subgroups within a culture will often drop an article in constructions particular to the group, according to Stvan. For example, science fiction writers describe something as being off or on planet. A health-care provider may refer to working in clinic, and captains will direct their crews on deck.

Without a doubt, today we communicate with a global audience, and we’re going to be affected by the people and the cultures we encounter. Hopefully, though, the next time my friend asks me to join her at table, I’ll be able to keep a tight grip on all my parts of speech and opt for the takeout counter.