THE WITH NOUNS THAT ARE ALWAYS SINGULAR

We nearly always use the with some singular nouns because we consider there is only one in existence:

• the sun the moon the Earth the air
• the ozone layer the past the future the countryside
• the EU the UN the seaside the world
• the Vietnam War the presidency the Government

This category also includes superlatives because there is usually only one thing or group that is superlative:

• He's the best accountant in town.
• It's one of the noisiest bars in town.

Logic is not always a reliable guide. We talk about the atmosphere and the environment. But we usually think of nature in a general sense and so omit the. Although we talk about the universe, we consider space as infinite and we use it without the:

• The oldest man in the space was John Glenn

NOUNS WITHOUT ARTICLES

We use uncountable and plural nouns without articles to refer to general ideas and categories:

• Cars and buses are a major source of pollution in cities.

We use many uncountable abstract nouns in this way:

• Intelligence is something you are born with, not something you learn.
• Laughter is goodfor you.

Here are more examples of abstract nouns we can use like this:

advice anger beauty chaos courage education

fun hospitality happiness history

information knowledge laughter luck music

patience poetry progress violence

GENERAL OR SPEClFlC - ADDING THE

We can use the with uncountable and countable nouns, including the abstract nouns above, to refer to a specific example of something. To make clear which specific example we are referring to, we may have to add a qualiSing clause with of (or another preposition), a relative clause, or an adjective:

General

• 1 like all kinds of music.
• 1s there life after death?
• We must fight for freedom.

Specific

• The music of Skalkottas is virtually unknown outside Greece.
• It was a film about the life of a polar explorer.
• 1 was allowed the freedom of the house and garden.

Sometimes the qualifying clause is implied rather than stated explicitly. This is especially true of truth:

• I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. (= about what happened)