"the" department of a large company

[sitifan]

If you work in a small business, own a small business or work inside the department of a large company, you want to contribute to the performance of the company and improve your overall performance as well.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernha...hey-really-are-for-everybody/?sh=1b3946e7663e
Since there should be several departments in a large company, why not say "a department of a large company"?

 

[5jj]

Why not indeed? I would.

 

[sitifan]

Definitions
in charge of something — responsible for something, such as the department of a large company or an activity for which arrangements must be made
https://studfile.net/preview/1462018/page:12/
I don't know why the author uses "the" in the definition. Since there should be several departments in a large company, can I say "responsible for something, such as a department of a large company or an activity for which arrangements must be made"?

 

[5jj]

Yes. I would.

 

[slevlife]

Yes, "a" is appropriate/correct, as others have pointed out. But this error is interesting in that I think I understand why the author made it.

The written sentence is grammatically incorrect (for the reasons discussed) but sounds relatively natural. Interestingly, fixing the error makes the sentence sound less natural. Why would you talk about a (random) department of a large company? Changing the to a makes the phrase seem pointless. Why not just say "...or work [STRIKE]inside the department of[/STRIKE] at a large company"? The reason the author is talking about departments (pointless) rather than teams (natural) or the overall company (also natural) is because departments evoke a large/deep hierarchical structure, which is what the author wants to emphasize. We have some common phrases for this: "in the bowels of X," "in the depths of X," etc. This is the phrasing and feeling the author is going for. So the mistake is not in using "the" instead of "a"; it's in using "department" instead of something like "depths".

 

[Rover_KE]

sitifan, you posted the same thread here.

Please do not post the same question simultaneously to more than one forum. Doing so wastes our valuable time. Instead, post your question to one forum and wait for replies. If you're not satisfied with those replies, you can try another forum, but please indicate in your thread that you've already asked the same question elsewhere (provide a link), and outline why you were not satisfied with the answers you received already.

(teechar)

 

[sitifan]

I had posted my question there one day before I posted here. The only one who replied there admitted that he didn't know why "the" sounds good in that context, and "a" doesn't sound as good. He hoped that someone else might answer my question but no other people did. So I posted the question here a day later.

 

[Tarheel]

If you work in a small business, own a small business or work inside the department of a large company, you want to contribute to the performance of the company and improve your overall performance as well.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernha...hey-really-are-for-everybody/?sh=1b3946e7663e
Since there could be several departments in a large company, why not say "a department of a large company"?

Good point!

 

[emsr2d2]

I had posted my question there one day before I posted here. The only one who replied there admitted that he didn't know why "the" sounds good in that context, and "a" doesn't sound as good. He hoped that someone else might answer my question but no other people did. So I posted the question here a day later.

It's perfectly reasonable for you to have done that, but we still ask that you post a link to your thread on the other forum so that we can see what happened.