The smartest use of articles

First some fun with vocab - Smart and Article

Before we get into the grammatical meaning of articles, it's interesting to note that in British English smart is more commonly used to mean elegantly dressed.

In American English, meanwhile, smart usually means intelligent, hence the term smartphone, although a lot of smartphones these days also look smart!

Meanwhile, Article is also used in connection with clothing. We can talk about an article of clothing just as we can talk about an item of clothing. And so article is sometimes a useful word for classifying clothes.

An article can also be a piece of writing in a magazine or newspaper!

But let's get back to articles and grammar - a[n], the, zero article

I was browsing through DIGG this morning and saw an interesting headline – interesting because it demonstrates two important functions of articles.

This isn't a smart remote

If we say a smart remote, we're not talking about one remote in particular. We're talking in this case about a hypothetical remote – one of many.

This use of the indefinite article a to talk about one of many is extremely common in English, but is often neglected by students, especially by Indonesian students who do not have good translations for articles in their own language.

It's the smartest remote

If we say it's the smartest remote then we're talking about this one exactly, without comparison.

Clearly the advertisers, or journalists, want us to think of this smartphone as somehow unique. It's not one of many, it's this one exactly.

One last time for good measure..

• one of many – a
• this one exactly – the

Try to use these articles in your writing and speaking to communicate these meanings accurately. Then watch as your IELTS grammar scores begin to increase!