To cook a meal for dinner or to cook the meal for dinner in the sentence like " I cooked the meal for dinner yesterday."? Which one is proper English?
3
-
1It depends. If there was a prior question such as "When was this meal cooked?", use the. If it was "Did you cook a meal or a whole banquet?", use a. If the only thing you could cook for dinner was a meal, consider "I cooked dinner yesterday." (e.g. to "Who cooked last night?").– LawrenceCommented Jun 26, 2017 at 12:35
-
3I don't know how widespread this is, but in my corner of the US the verb paired with dinner to mean "prepare" is almost always make: I made dinner last night. The verb cook I would use on its own to mean the same thing: I cooked last night (so it's your turn to make dinner).– 1006aCommented Jun 26, 2017 at 12:43
-
I would prefer, for the latter case, "I cooked the dinner meal yesterday," which may have a different meaning than that which you're looking for.– Carl WitthoftCommented Jun 26, 2017 at 14:22
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
Proper everyday English (one p) would just be "To cook dinner". Dinner is a meal there's redundancy in either of your options.
You could just about use the first in some situations: "We were only going to have leftovers but in the end I cooked a meal for dinner yesterday". It doesn't sound quite natural even then -- I'd probably be more specific ("...in the end I cooked pizza...") or rephrase slightly: "We were only going to have leftovers but in the end I cooked a proper dinner yesterday".
-
You remember I promised to make one of those special kormas sometime this month? I cooked the meal for dinner yesterday. It's a pity you had to stay in Hartlepool. Commented Jun 26, 2017 at 22:37
-
@EdwinAshworth I had a similar example in mind but it would always sound more natural.– Chris HCommented Jun 27, 2017 at 6:00