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I was reading my previous question last night:
Should you use present or past tense when telling people about your work experience?

And I saw Jay write this:

You could have experience "in a bakery", as opposed to "in bakery"

I would like to know whether these two sentences have different meaning:

You could have experience "in a bakery"

You could have experience "in bakery".

if yes, could you tell me why please?

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    You will never now hear a person say "You could have experience in bakery". it's archaic already.
    – SovereignSun
    Commented May 26, 2017 at 14:02
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    You have baking experience from working in a bakery. But if you did their financial accounting, say, and have no hands-on experience making bread and cakes, then we wouldn't say that you had "baking experience". Then you would have some "bakery experience". You know how a bakery operates but might not know how to bake a cake.
    – TimR
    Commented May 26, 2017 at 15:20

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The difference is that the noun "bakery" has an out-dated definition which means "the art of baking" and "a bakery" is a place where baking is done, where people cook bread or other things.

  • You could have experience "in a bakery" means in a place where they bake. a building.
  • You could have experience "in bakery" means in the science of baking.
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    That said, you could use a gerund: You could have experience in baking. And you could use the original construct with words that are still in use: You could have experience in medicine.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented May 26, 2017 at 14:56

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