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Rule "'The' or 'a' before a punctuation"

This is one of many errors that LanguageTool can detect. Visit the LanguageTool homepage to use it online or download it for free.

Description: 'The' or 'a' before a punctuation
Message: Articles like '\2' are rarely followed by punctuation. A word may be missing after '\2', or the punctuation mark may not be necessary.
Category: Grammar (ID: GRAMMAR)
Incorrect sentences
that this rule can detect:
  • Another example of chimpanzee to human aggression occurred February 2009 in Stamford, Connecticut, when a , 14-year-old pet chimp named Travis attacked his owner's friend.
    Correction suggestion: a
  • On 4 May 1955, a survey team arrived at Groom Lake and laid out a , north-south runway on the southwest corner of the lakebed.
    Correction suggestion: a
  • I am going to an, then I see you.
    Correction suggestion: an
  • I am going to the; that's right.
    Correction suggestion: the
Correct sentences
for comparison:
  • I am going to the store.
  • I got a .2TB hard drive.
  • I met Robert (a.k.a. Bob) at the store.
  • a. The first item in the list.
  • I am in Concourse A.
  • I read the Qur'an.
  • He was taken to Chang’an.
  • I got up at 3 a.m.
  • Here a, b and c are lattice constants.
  • Thus, the alternance of -o/-a, has been replaced by ø/-a.
  • It corresponds to English adjectives in -ic, -al, -an, -y, -ist, etc.
  • ... DP Updates? N/a, remove image
  • ...f temperature (a, c) and salinit..
  • ...g coefficient, a, is greater than...
  • I'm not seeing the, the reasoning behind it.
  • Let the, let the tool o...
  • ...question, drop the, drop the question
  • ... determiner the, this, that, wh...
  • ...about articles—a, an, and the.
  • ...adjectives: a, an, and the.
  • ...eting back may the, what was that...
  • ... 2023 event as a, “week of titan...
  • ... be paragraphs a, c, b? And then...
  • ... at the point a,0.
  • ... at the point (a,0)
  • ... guess goes to the, you know, the ...
  • ... is, you know, the, the, the class...
  • ... guidance that the, the riff, you ...
  • ...have to go to the, umm bye, ”Alice...
  • Given a subset U of An, can one recover the set of polynomials which generate it?
  • 93 – Yuan An, Chinese scholar
Pattern: Show XML · Show in Rule Editor
Check the following text against just this rule:

ID: THE_PUNCT [1]
Version: 6.5-SNAPSHOT (2024-04-17 22:33:07 +0200)