[General] The first three seasons

[Silverobama]

Hi.

I wonder if the following two sentences are natural. Would native speakers use them?

1) The first three seasons each featured a wildcard show. Contestants who failed to make it to the finals were invited back to perform for another chance at a spot in the finals.
2) As western fashions changed, the basic cheongsam design changed too, introducing high-necked sleeveless dresses, bell-like sleeves, and the black lace frothing at the hem.

I think these two are good, but I'm not sure because I'm not a native speaker. They were from some Chinese-English websites.

 

[teechar]

OK, but why did you use "the" before "black lace frothing"? Is it special in some way?

 

[Silverobama]

OK, but why did you use "the" before "black lace frothing"? Is it special in some way?

I don't know. I didn't write them. I wrote them down many years ago. At that time, I tried to memorize more words and sentences to help me understand English.

Do you mean that the "the" is not necessary in "the black lace frothing"?

I'll use your versions because I ask you for your help here. Please enlighten.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

If you say "the black lace frothing," it means you assume readers are already familiar with it. Since you didn't use the for the other items in the series, you probably don't want to for the frothing. Remember parallelism.

Everything else is fine.

By the way, I've never seen the frothing used as a noun. But I like it. It's a good image.

 

[Rover_KE]

OK, but why did you use "the" before "black lace frothing"? Is it special in some way?

I don't know. I didn't write them. I wrote them down many years ago.

I'm pretty sure you know that we want this information in post #1 every time you quote text which is not your own.