"include a talk of" vs "include talk of"

Question

I have a part of a sentence "... that was expected to include talk of modernizing ..." from a CNN article.

I thought an article "a" should be included, so I googled with keywords "include a talk of" and "include talk of" to find that both searches return a bunch of results: meaning that both of them are used frequently.

Then, is the meaning, with or without an article, the same? I'm curious if it is customary that people just don't use articles without modifying the meaning of a sentence in English?

Answer 1

Talk can be either countable or uncountable.

See this from the Oxford Learner's Dictionary

Uncountable (definitions 4, 5, 6):

include talk of ...

means there will be conversation or discussion about something in general.

Countable (definition 3):

include a talk about ...

means there will be a formal speech, presentation, or lecture.