English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Could you tell me if the use of the but not a affect the meaning of the following sentence in any way?
Could you lay your phone aside and listen to me for a second.
Could you lay your phone aside and listen to me for the second.
In my experience a is mostly used in similar contexts, but I have also seen the used similarly.
It's "listen to me for a second", NOT "the second". If you saw an example that said "the second", either the writer made a mistake or you're taking out of context.
This is a classic example of the use of articles "a" vs "the". You're asking the person to listen for "a second". It is not some particular second, it's any second (presumably within the next few minutes).
