Bush's Shrinking Safety Zone

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by tw

"The Cat in the Hat sat on the Mat". Let's see. "A Cat in the Hat sat on the Mat". Well it does change the meaning. "The Cat in a Hat sat on the Mat". Not good enough. "The Cat in a Hat sat on a Mat". Even better. It still says what was originally intended - with four less letters.

Anytime you swap the indefinite article for the definite article you are changing the meaning of a constituent.

[tw]

Originally Posted by grant

Anytime you swap the indefinite article for the definite article you are changing the meaning of a constituent.

... sometimes. In this case, the elimination of "THE" caused no change in what was intended. It may have caused a change in the many ways another could have interpreted what was written. But the missing "THE" caused no change in what the author intended to say. The one interpretation intended by the author remains intact without "THE". (And now my spelling checker is complaining about dangling prepositions. No one is happy with this language - or why lawyers make so much money.)