 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
158
Watson.
2. When nothing is known about the person mentioned but the name.
This usage corresponds to the Russian word «».
There’s a young American girl staying at the hotel. She’s a Miss Render.
3. When an originally proper name comes to be used as a common noun (usually as a result of metonymy or
metaphor), as in:
This man doesn’t know a Rubens from a Rembrandt (pictures of these painters).
There is in Gary’s work the naturalness and zest of a Defoe, the generosity of a Fielding (like that of
Defoe, like that of Fielding).
Everybody isn’t a Mary Pickford (a film star like Mary Pickfbrd).
He was a Crusoe with no need to look for footprints in the sand (a man like Crusoe).
‘Have a cigar.’ ‘If it is a real Havana.’
4. When some phase, aspect, or state is meant, whether it refers to a living being or a geographical place:
John was inside, a very different John from the lad he had known seven years ago.
And now here was Gulliver’s girl Barbara, that mournful-eyed waif from an unhappy France.
So at night Castle dreamt of a South Africa reconstructed with hatred.
(Compare with the same use of the indefinite article before unique and non-count nouns.)
§ 202. Absence of the articles in set expressions
at dinner (breakfast, etc.)
at first notice
at first sight
at night
at table
at war
in search of
in spite of
out of date
out of order
out of place
out of sight
arm in arm
day after day
day by day
hand in hand
night after night
night by night
by airmail
by letter
by telegram
by air
by car
by land
by plane
by sea
by ship (boat)
by train
by tram
by tube
by water
a kind of
a sort of
place,
book,
task, etc.
on account of
on condition that
by accident
by chance
by mistake
by name
by sight
to be in
to go to
bed