泰晤士(TIMES)四合院儿

wherestip wrote:

David, enjoy your trip to Europe.

In 1989, a Philadelphia financial analyst bought an old painting (a depiction of a country scene) for $4 at a flea market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, mostly because he liked the frame. He liked it even more once he found that the painting housed a rare and valuable document.

The buyer was investigating a tear in the canvas, and the frame fell apart in his hands when he attempted to detach it from the painting, leading him to discover a folded document which appeared to be an old copy of the Declaration of Independence stored between the canvas and its wood backing. After a friend who collected Civil War memorabilia advised him to have it appraised, he learned that the document was in fact a rare original Dunlap broadside, one of 500 official copies from the first printing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

…

March 2006 saw a smaller-scale repetition of this experience when Michael Sparks was browsing a thrift shop in Nashville, Tennessee, and happened upon a yellowed, shellacked, rolled-up document. Learning from a clerk that the item could be had for a mere $2.48, Sparks purchased it, took it home, and after doing some online research eventually learned that he had bought one of 200 “official copies” of the Declaration of Independence commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820.

A true copy of the original handwritten 1776 Declaration of Independence rescued from obscurity by Tom Lingenfelter of Bucks County, Pennsylvania is to be offered for sale at a yet undetermined venue. Lingenfelter, a former Counter-intelligence Special Agent and President of the Heritage Collectors' Society, purchased the Declaration at a Bucks County flea market 20 years ago.

Believing it to be merely a souvenir copy his research showed, to the contrary, he had discovered the only true facsimile copy of the original Declaration of Independence ever produced. Lingenfelter's meticulous detective work uncovered astonishing facts about the document's production, including the existence of only two 'anastatic' copies, one which sold at Thomas Birch's Sons Auctioneers, Philadelphia in 1891.

QHE wrote:


At the lexical level, China English manifests itself through many ways such as transliteration and loan translations.

As Chinese grammar does not distinguish between definite and indefinite articles, Chinese speakers struggle with when to use or not use the English definite article "the".

At the syntactic level, Chinese thinking has influenced Chinglish speakers to utilize a different sequence and structure to make sentences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinglish#Features

Chinglish reflects the influence of Chinese syntax and grammar.[42] For instance, Chinese verbs are not necessarily conjugated and there is no equivalent article for English "the", both of which can create awkward translations.

wherestip wrote:

Just to make things interesting (or more complicated), I would also like to point out some situations where the habits of using the definite article may differ somewhat between Americans and Britons.

Is the assertion correct in the first place? I have never heard a US citizen talk about “going to the college” unless it were a specific college. They usually talk of “going to college”. Why would it be different for university or hospital?

...

It is to do with the specific and the general.
At University - I am at university somewhere.
At the University - I am at the university we are discussing.

Going to hospital - any hospital.
Going to the hospital - I am at the hospital we are discussing.

https://www.englishforums.com/English/AdmittedHospitalAdmitted-Hospital/jncpq/post.htm

wherestip wrote:

Yueyin,

Yes, the basic rules are surely the same. But from my experience, when it comes to referring to a hospital, American English seldom drops the article regardless of whether the hospital is specific or not.

hospital

a large building where sick or injured people receive medical treatment

They are building a new hospital.

in hospital British English
She visited him in hospital.

in the hospital American English
Two people are in the hospital with serious burns.

COLLOCATIONS
VERBS

go to hospital British English, go to the hospital American English
The pain got worse and she had to go to the hospital.

be taken/rushed/airlifted to hospital British English, be taken/rushed/airlifted to the hospital American English
Three people were taken to hospital after a crash on the motorway.

be admitted to hospital British English, be admitted to the hospital American English
He was admitted to hospital suffering from chest pain.

leave/come out of hospital British English, leave/come out of the hospital American English
Her mother never left the hospital.

be discharged/released from hospital British English, be discharged/released from the hospital American English (=be allowed to leave a hospital because you are better)
It was several weeks before he was released from hospital.

wherestip wrote:

蛤蟆跳井 - 不懂
Nevertheless ...