The or 0 articel

[Mher]

Hi. Should I put definite article before the underlined expression and can I use the adjective "high" with "mission"? The sentence is as follows: "I congratulate you on being reelected as President of the Republic of Lithuania and wish you further achievements in your high (crucial) mission for the benefit of friendly Lithuanian people."

 

[Raymott]

Use 'crucial' or 'important', not 'high'. Does he have a crucial or important mission?
I'd write "for the benefit of all Lithuanian people." I don't know about your politics, but in a democracy, if someone is elected, s/he is meant to work for the interests of all, not just 'friendly' or 'the friendly' people.
By saying "the friendly Lithuanian people", you could mean all, and be asserting that Lithuanian people are all friendly.
By saying "friendly Lithuanian people", you are wishing benefits only for the Lithuanian people who are friendly (to the President's party, to his ideology, or to his bank account, etc).

 

[Mher]

All presidential missions are crucial that is why I am using this word.
By saying friendly, I want to say that Lithuanians are close to Armenians (our nation) and they (nations) are friends. I guess I have misused this word.

 

[Raymott]

All presidential missions are crucial that is why I am using this word.
By saying friendly, I want to say that Lithuanians are close to Armenians (our nation) and they (nations) are friends. I guess I have misused this word.

Not necessarily. With "the" it's OK. The relations between Armenians and Lithuanians in general would affect the connotations of what you write. If, as you say, the two nations consider themselves friends, then "the friendly people" would be interpreted by Lithuanians in the right way.

 

[Mher]

Thank you so much.

 

[Mher]

And one more question please. Do you agree with this statement? "If you are referring to some/many Jewish people, I would not use the article. If you are referring to Jewish people as a whole, I would use it."

 

[Raymott]

No, I wouldn't agree without qualifying it. "The Jewish people" is usually correct in referring to all the Jewish people. However, you can say "Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah". You'd use 'the' in "The Jewish people have descended from the ancient Israelites". That is, as a 'race', you'd use "the". You can't refer to some Jewish people without using a qualifying word like 'some', 'many'. Obviously you can't use 'the' in that case, because "The some Jewish people" is not grammatical. And you can't assume that the zero article means 'some'. "Jewish people don't eat pork; Jewish people like money", etc. are generalisations that are not necessarily true, and you can't defend them by saying that you mean "some Jewish people".
If that's confusing, it's because there's no general rule such as you've written.

PS: You don't need to post a separate thanks note. That's what the 'Thank' button is for.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I was getting ready to post the same response. Stripping a question of context and reposting it is not a great idea.

 

[Raymott]

Did I miss something?

 

[Rover_KE]

Mher quoted Mike's statement here without acknowledging the authorship.

 

[Raymott]

Ah, I hadn't realised I was answering a question already recently answered.

 

[Mher]

I was getting ready to post the same response. Stripping a question of context and reposting it is not a great idea.

I agree with you Mike. I did not mean to call your statement into question. The point is that as Raymott put it there is no general rule about it and I just wanted him to elaborate more on that issue.

 

[Mher]

Mher quoted Mike's statement here without acknowledging the authorship.

It is because I did not find the way to do it. However, I have put the sentence in quotation marks. I think this should be sufficient.

 

[Mher]

PS: You don't need to post a separate thanks note. That's what the 'Thank' button is for.

I know about that button. I just wanted to present my appreciation in words.