I have just bought a novel, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
There is a page about Jonathan Swift’s life. There, I found a sentence which I cannot analyze grammatically, no matter how much I am scratching my head to come up with an answer. The sentence is:”At the age of thirty-one, Swift returned to Ireland as chaplain to a lord justice.”
To me, this sentence is wrong grammatically. It should be:
“At the age of thirty-one, Swift returned to Ireland as A chaplain to a lord justice.”
Here is my reason: “chaplain” cannot be used without an “A” in front of it because it is in singular and an “A” is needed in front of it.
What do you think? Do you agree with me?
Thank you for taking the time to help me.
Hi Farhad!
“A” doesn’t come before “Chaplain” as an article isn’t needed with official job titles that only one person is holding at the time in question.
Hope this helps!
