✍️ English & Grammar · Chapter 3

Articles and prepositions

Articles follow one question. Prepositions follow no rule at all — and knowing which is which saves you months of trying to reason your way through the wrong one.

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The basics

Articles (a, an, the) tell the reader whether a noun is new, already known, or meant in general. Prepositions (on, for, with, in) link a noun to the rest of the sentence.

The problem it solves: these are the small words a reader notices first. "Let us discuss about the schema" is perfectly clear, but in a covering note or PR it reads as not proofread — and that judgement is about care, not English.

The mental model: two completely different systems.

• Articles run on logic — three questions in order. Does the reader know which one? → the. Is it new, singular and countable? → a/an. Plural or uncountable, meant generally? → nothing.
• Prepositions run on memory — depends on, responsible for, familiar with. There is no rule underneath; you collect them.

The good news: unlike vocabulary, this list is finite. Learn it once and the errors stop.

Explained

~~Let us discuss about the schema.~~ → Let's discuss the schema.

~~He is one of the best engineer.~~ → one of the best engineers.

~~I will revert back on this.~~ → I'll reply on this.

~~We need to cope up with the load.~~ → cope with the load.

None of these stop a reader understanding you. All of them are noticed — and they're a fixed, finite list. That's the good news: this is memorisation, not reasoning.

Pointing across a room

You and I are in a room with several laptops.

I say "pass me a laptop" — any one, you choose. I've told you the category, not the item.

I say "pass me the laptop" — you know which one. Either it's the only one, or we've already discussed it, or it's obvious from the situation.

I say "I work with laptops" — no article at all, because I mean laptops in general, not any particular ones.

That is genuinely the whole system. "A" introduces. "The" points at something we both already have in mind. No article means the category in general.

Prepositions have no story like this, because there is no logic underneath them. Interested in, good at, depends on, responsible for. You don't derive them — you collect them.

The article decision, in order

Three questions, in that order. A before a consonant sound, an before a vowel sound — so an SQL query (ess-cue-el) but a URL (yoo-are-el). The sound decides, never the letter.

Where "the" is required, and where it's forbidden

Always "the":

• second mention — We hit an error. The error was a timeout.
• only one of its kind — the CEO, the database, the sun
• superlatives and ordinals — the fastest query, the first attempt
• made specific by what follows — the schema of the events table

Never an article (zero article):

• plurals in general — Engineers use dashboards.
• uncountables in general — Data is expensive to move.
• most abstract nouns — Speed matters more than elegance.
• languages, most countries, meals — in Python, in India, after lunch

Uncountable in English even though they feel countable — this list catches almost everyone:

data        information    software     hardware
feedback    research       advice       equipment
progress    knowledge      training     traffic

✗ Please share your feedbacks.       ✓ Please share your feedback.
✗ I have two informations.           ✓ I have two pieces of information.
✗ We made good progresses.           ✓ We made good progress.
✗ He gave me many advices.           ✓ He gave me a lot of advice.

Step through the choice

Same three questions, seven times. The pattern a → the across a first and second mention is the one to internalise.

The prepositions you'll actually need

These are collocations — fixed pairings you memorise, not logic you derive. This list covers most technical writing:

| Pattern | Example | | --- | --- | | depends on | The cost depends on the partition count. | | responsible for | I'm responsible for the ingestion layer. | | familiar with | I'm familiar with Spark. | | based on | Partitioned based on event date. | | consists of | The pipeline consists of four stages. | | results in | Skew results in one slow task. | | interested in | I'm interested in the platform role. | | good at | She's good at query tuning. | | access to | Access to production is restricted. | | reason for | The reason for the failure. | | difference between | The difference between ETL and ELT. | | capable of | Capable of handling 10k events/sec. |

Verbs that take no preposition — this is where most errors live:

✗ discuss about      ✓ discuss
✗ comprises of       ✓ comprises   (or 'is composed of')
✗ emphasise on       ✓ emphasise
✗ cope up with       ✓ cope with
✗ reply back         ✓ reply
✗ revert back        ✓ reply
✗ order for          ✓ order
✗ request for        ✓ request     (but: 'a request for X' as a noun ✓)

Fill the gaps

1. She is one of the best ___ (engineer / engineers) on the team.
2. Please share your ___ (feedback / feedbacks) by Friday.
3. The result depends ___ (on / upon / of) the partition key.
4. Let's discuss ___ (about the / the) schema change.
5. I hit ___ (a / an) SQL error and ___ (a / the) error was ___ (a / the) timeout.
6. We need to cope ___ (up with / with) the increased load.

Where it costs you something

You're applying for a platform engineering role. Your covering note says:

"I am having 4 years experience in data engineering. I am responsible of building pipelines and I am familiar in Spark. Kindly revert back with the further details."

Nothing here is unclear. A recruiter understands every word.

But this note is being compared against thirty others, by someone spending forty seconds on each. Four errors in three sentences reads as not proofread — and that inference is about care, not about English.

The fix takes a minute:

"I have four years of experience in data engineering. I'm responsible for building pipelines and I'm familiar with Spark. I'd be glad to hear more about the role."

This is the highest-return proofreading you can do, because the error list is finite and known. Fifteen collocations and three article questions cover almost everything a technical writer needs — and unlike vocabulary or fluency, you can finish learning them.

Words to know

In two minutes

• Articles mark a noun as new (a/an), known (the) or general (no article).
• Ask in order: is it specific? → the. Singular and countable? → a/an. Plural or uncountable in general? → nothing.
• A/an follows the first sound, not the letter: an SQL query, an hour, a URL, a university.
• First mention gets a/an; every later mention of the same thing gets the.
• Data, feedback, information, software, progress, advice are uncountable — never pluralise them.
• Prepositions are collocations: depends on, responsible for, familiar with, consists of — memorised, not reasoned.
• Many errors are extra prepositions: discuss, comprise, emphasise and reply take none; cope with, not cope up with.
• The list is finite: keep your own error list and search every important draft for it.

Test yourself

There are 11 questions, 3 puzzles and 7 recall cards for this lesson in the app — the recall cards come back on later days, just before you would forget.