Occupational hazard

I never thought much about articles before I went through editorial training, except maybe to be glad that ours are so much easier than than the fussy variations in French.

I hadn't thought about how hard it could be to figure out which to use when or what an impact it has if you get it wrong. And because Japanese doesn't use articles, a native Japanese speaker writing in English has to make a conscious judgement before every noun about which, if any, article to use. Think about how you would explain the difference. Not easy, is it? The people who write the stuff we work on are often brilliant scientists and cutting-edge engineers but rarely advanced speakers of English. A veteran editor suggested a handy rule of thumb: "If you see the word "the," it's wrong."

"Cynic," I scoffed.

Unfortunately, it has too often proved true. Now I question every "the," "a," "an," or blank space where one of these might be AWOL. The gaps are the worst, and they are the reason my head implodes every time I see this ad on the subway.

Pride of Lion. The possibilities are many - A pride of lions? The pride of the lion? Pride of a lion? You could mix and match all the way from Hibiya to Hatchobori (and, sadly, I have) and still not be sure what they were getting at.