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The situation is: I came home and realized that one window in my house is open (because e.g. it was colder than it should be), but I didn't know which one exactly (my house has several windows). Which article should I use?

I came home and realized that I had not closed [the/a] window.

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    Better ways to say this: "I realized I had not closed one of the windows" or "I realized I left a window open". "The" implies there is only one window, or that the speaker knows which window was left open. But "I left the window open" sounds a little better, even if you don't know which window it is.
    – swbarnes2
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 18:28
  • Unless you have somehow identified the window to your reader (or there is only one window in the house) you'd use (ta da!) the indefinite article.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 19:05
  • @swbarnes2, that's a good alternative suggestion, but they really do mean the same thing in this case. It should be realised I had left a window open.
    – Will Crawford
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 19:41

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In my opinion either is acceptable, with caveats:

If you have a particular window in mind, then the window refers to that (but the reader wouldn't know which window other than it referring to the one that had been left open).

When you don't know which window yet, then saying a window is indeed possibly more “correct”, but for the reader, nothing has changed: we still don't know which window (unless you were writing a book and were able to add illustrations). There is also the problem that it can parse a bit more like realized I had failed to close a [single] window ... meaning I had left all the windows open.

I'd probably say had forgotten to close (the|a) window myself, but it's in no way “better” than your version(s).

The only bad option would be to say a window if you only had one window in the house :o).

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  • I'd be far happier with '... shut the door' here than '... shut the window', probably because the implication is that the door must be specified as the one you left by. ' ... shut the window' needs a modicum of prior context ( ... [of the room I'd been sitting in, mentioned before in the text]).
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 20:26
  • If your last complaint is addressed to me, perhaps you should know that the downvote wasn't mine. I can prove it (and may well do if your comment isn't removed).
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 23, 2018 at 19:36

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