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From English Grammar Today on Cambridge Dictionary

We don’t use "the" with plural nouns when we are referring to things in general ...

I guess I understand the meaning of the whole sentence above. I'd just like to know whether the following one mean the same thing?

... when we refer to things in general ...

Are both common when talking about grammar rules.

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  • In that context, the meanings are the same. Jun 8, 2020 at 6:05
  • Same meaning, both correct. "When we refer to" sounds more native though.
    – codi6
    Jul 10, 2020 at 21:17
  • I would like to edit the original question. I want to replace "I'd just like to know whether the following one mean the same thing?" with "I'd just like to know whether the following sentence means the same thing?". However, I have too many pending edits in my queue and I am not allowed to edit the question. Sep 25, 2022 at 2:19
  • I see a nuance, though offhand I cannot come up with a circumstance where it matters. “when we are referring” describes a context, “when we refer” refers to the act of referring itself. Sep 25, 2022 at 4:42

1 Answer 1

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Both of the following sentences are consistent with how most educated Americans used the English language between the years 1990 and 2020:

  • We don’t use "the" with plural nouns when we are referring to things in general.
  • We don’t use "the" with plural nouns when we refer to things in general.

Both sentences are correct.

An alignment is shown below to show what the differences between the two sentences are:


+----------------------------------------------+---------------+-----------------------+
| We don’t use "the" with plural nouns when we | are referring | to things in general. |
+----------------------------------------------+---------------+-----------------------+
| We don’t use "the" with plural nouns when we | refer         | to things in general. |
+----------------------------------------------+---------------+-----------------------+

There exist sentences such that the word "refer" is interchangeable with the phrase "are referring" within that sentence while preserving grammatical correctness and meaning.

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