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What is the difference between these two phrases:

  1. a peach, orange, or apple
  2. a peach, an orange, or an apple

Can we distribute articles when "or" is used as a conjunction?

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Either way works.

We tend to repeat the article when the nouns are not closely connected. In this case, they're reasonably closely connected, so both 1 and 2 are fine. But if they're very closely connected, you probably shouldn't repeat the article, and if they're not related at all, you should repeat the article. So we would generally say:

a factory or workshop,

a giraffe or a cell phone tower.

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