army1987 comments on The Universal Medical Journal Article Error - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (189)
That's an uncharitable interpretation of that sentence. It would mean that if there was a word such as “any” before the phrase “school-age children”, but there isn't. The zero article before plural nouns in English doesn't generally denote an universal quantifier; “men are taller than women” doesn't mean ∀x ∈ {men} ∀y ∈ {women} x.height > y.height. The actual meaning of the zero article before plural nouns in English is context-dependent and non-trivial to formalize.
Are you a non-native English speaker by any chance? (So am I FWIW, but the definite article in my native language has a very similar meaning to the zero article in English in contexts like these.)