the + season

[sitifan]

1. Spring is coming.
2. The spring is coming.
#1 is correct. Is #2 also acceptable?

[2006]

1. Spring is coming.
2. The spring is coming.
#1 is correct.

Is #2 also acceptable? not to me

2006

[Nightmare85]

#2 is not correct.
A spring comes every year, that's why #1 is correct.
You can only say "the spring" if you talk about a special even that happened in past.

Example:
There was a heavy storm that destroyed the complete village last spring.
I will never forget the spring.
(However, "this spring" sounds better to me, though.)
Maybe another member has a better example.

Cheers!

[Raymott]

#2 is not correct.
A spring comes every year, that's why #1 is correct.
You can only say "the spring" if you talk about a special even that happened in past.

Are you sure of that? From my reading, I'd have to disagree. Many authors use the terms "the spring, the fall, the summer", although "the winter, the autumn" sound less familiar.

"In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love" - Tennyson.

The following are quite acceptable where I come from:
"1001 things to do over the summer."
"I hate this cold. I'm looking forward to the summer."
Perhaps it's less commonly heard in Germany?

R.

[Raymott]

Google

I think it's wrong to say categorically that "The spring is coming" is wrong when so many people - good writers among them - use it.
Some of these links are to obviously bad writing, but many are not.

Please don't make me look up more examples from good literature. They are there, but it would be a pain to have to track them down.
I note the naysayers so far are from America and Germany. It may be more common in the British tradition.

[Nightmare85]

Are you sure of that?

Unfortunately, I'm not sure.

About google:
I did such a test a while ago, too.
The wrong answer had more results.
"A UT" < "An UT"
(Of course "A UT" is correct because it's [a-you-tee])

I don't want to say your google search is useless, but we should not completely trust it.

Probably "The spring" can be true depending on the context.
However, just as the thread starter posted this sentence it does not make sense to me.

P.S: Without "the" it's 288,000 results

Cheers!

[Raymott]

Probably "The spring" can be true depending on the context.

I tend to agree.

[sitifan]

http://www.englishforums.com/English...mmpkp/post.htm

[2006]

There is one very important thing to 'remember'.

If it is clear that one is talking about the spring season, 'the spring' and 'spring' are very often both acceptable. But if you just without context say 'the spring is coming', people might not know what you are talking about and may ask 'what spring?'. (See Gillnetter's post.)

So that is why it is not acceptable to say 'The spring is coming.' when there is no context. The only reason one can know the spring season is what is being talked about in the OP is because of the presence of sentence 1.

So if the OP only had sentence 2, we couldn't be sure what is being talked about. Thus sentence 2 by itself is not acceptable.

[Raymott]

So if the OP only had sentence 2, we couldn't be sure what is being talked about. Thus sentence 2 by itself is not acceptable.

I'd agree with that. That's the case with any example sentence out of context.
You could, by that argument, make the case that #1 is wrong too, for a similar reason. It could mean "[My friend Dick] Spring is coming."