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Which to use?: "had lunch" and "had a lunch" Hello, I have a question about using article, when I searched "had a lunch" and "had lunch" on google, the results amounted to about "3,710,000", and "1,760,000" respectively. But on Google Ngram, "had lunch" is by far the dominant phrase. Which is the correct sentence between "I had lunch with John." and "I had a lunch with John."?
Jul 23, 2014 2:03 PM
Corrections · 9
1

"I had a nice lunch in that restaurant" is correct, but if you take away the word "nice", you have to take away the "a" as well: "I had lunch in that restaurant.  It was very nice."

 

"I had a lunch there" would mean "an event".  Example:  Prince Charles said, "I had a lunch at Windsor Castle for Sheik Maktoum al Maktoum."

July 24, 2014
1

I had a lunch with John = I held a lunch event together with John (for some clients or to raise funds, etc).

 

Example:  Prince Charles said, "I had a lunch with Mummy at Windsor for the Sultan of Brunei."

July 24, 2014
1

It is always "have lunch" if you mean "eat some food at midday".

 

"Have a lunch" means something entirely different.  It means organise, host or hold a lunch event, as in:

 

"What shall we do to warm up this client?"

"Let's have a lunch."

 

It means, let's use the device of a lunch and contrive or organise one.

 

Alternatively, it means a diary engagement:

 

"Are you free tomorrow for lunch?"

"Let me look at my diary.  I already have a lunch tomorrow."

 

It means you already have a prior lunch appointment.

 

It's not a matter of statistics.  

 

 

 

July 24, 2014

That's really interesting to see the stats, however in your example the correct sentence is "I had lunch with John." When speaking in general, we tend to say "have lunch" whereas if you are speaking about one lunch in particular (say for example at a certain place, or if you want to describe the lunch), then you could say "have a lunch".

 

Here are some examples:

Having lunch is the best part of my workday!

Yesterday I had lunch with my best friend.

What time do you usually eat lunch?

 

I had a really nice lunch at that new restaurant.

The lunch being served at that cafeteria is really expensive.

I usually have an early lunch when I'm at work.

 

 

July 23, 2014
have a lunch와 have lunch 사이에서 먹다라는 의미가 적절할 때는 have lunch를 쓰고, 점식 식사라는 하나의 사건이나 행사의 의미에 가까울 때는 have a lunch를 쓰고, 형용사가 앞에 붙을 때도 관사 a를 붙이는 구나.
August 21, 2014
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