To be thoroughly conversant with the usage of the articles “a,” “an,” and “the,” you need a full-dress review of the nature and kinds of nouns in the English language. You will recall that there are seven kinds of nouns: common nouns, proper nouns, collective nouns, abstract nouns, compound nouns, count nouns, and mass nouns. There are specific rules for indicating the indefiniteness, definiteness, specificity, and particularity of each of these kinds of nouns. Click this link to the
eHow Family Education website for its nifty, short and sweet description of each of them.
For the usage of the articles in modifying nouns, click this link to
the Purdue Online Writing Lab. It makes a comprehensive discussion of the usage of English articles depending on the sound that begins a particular noun, the choice of article for count and noncount (mass) nouns, and the types of nouns that don’t need to be preceded by articles. I’m sure that after studiously going over the discussions in those two websites, your confusion over the usage of articles will forever be a thing of the past.
As to this tweet that you have just posted, “My uncle has
a weird habit of talking to and feeding lizards in his room,” it’s a grammar-perfect sentence. It correctly uses of the indefinite article “a” for the noun “habit” and correctly omits using any article before the noun phrase “lizards in his room” Had you written that sentence as “My uncle has
a weird habit of talking to and feeding
the lizards in his room,” it would have given the weird impression that he knows those lizards intimately and that he knows precisely which and how many of them are regular denizens of his room. Without the article “the” before “lizard,” on the other hand, it would indicate that his relationship with those lizards hasn’t really gotten out of hand; he just enjoys feeding them regardless of whether or not he knows them intimately and whether they are regular denizens of his room or just strangers out to get a free meal. From this, we can see how profound the impact of article usage is to the subjects or objects of our sentences and, even more important, to what it is precisely that we want to say in English.
I noticed just now that you’ve made a P.S. regarding your confusion over the article usage for the following sentences:
“I don’t have THE courage to sing.”
“I don’t have courage to sing.”
“I don’t have THE time to get a haircut.”
“I don’t have time to get a haircut.”
I’m sure that after going to the two websites I indicated earlier in this post, you’ll get your confidence back and find it a breeze figuring out which versions are correct in the sentence pairs you presented above.
Go for it and let me know what happens!