Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[fw]

Hello everyone.

"I'm out with the cold."　This is what I heard the instructor (a Japanese) say today on a radio English program for the beginners, broadcast by NHK, the Japanese equivalent of BBC in the UK. I wondered why he used "the cold, not "a cold."

Just imagine you were down with a cold and didn't go to school. If a friend of yours would like to ask you why you were absent from school and called you, would you say to him, "I'm laid up with the cold" or "I�m laid up with a cold"?

Best regards,
Fw

[alan.es]

You would normally use 'a cold' to mean the illness and 'the cold' to mean the weather.

However it is possible to say 'I'm out with the cold' when you want to say 'the same cold (illness) that I had yesterday and which we've talked about or you know about'.

It could also be 'the cold (illness) which everybody is suffering from at this time'.

Both of these are possible but not a normal use