[chokosaki]

I have a question that seems to be more complicated than it should be....

Which is correct?

"I play guitar."
or
"I play the guitar."

I assumed that both are correct depending on context.
Such as...."I play the guitar" is more definitive. I can say that if someone is asking me "do you play guitar or drums?" However, in a general statement I can say "I play guitar."

So, I want to know which is correct? I have a friend studying for his TEFL and he is curious. He says straight up and down that it can only be 'I play the guitar' and that the other is always wrong.

I'm an American btw and am more concerned with the American English part, however, if there is a difference between British English and American English, I would like to know. Thanks.

[susan53]

Play guitar is now much more common in both US and UK English . If you search the British National Corpus you find :

play guitar : 27 examples
play the guitar : 16 examples


Google, on the other hand, brought up :
play guitar : 12,700,000 results
play the guitar : 3,400,000 results


Here are some examples of "play guitar" from British English (from the BNC)

ART 1355 I'm learning to play guitar and I like Johnny Marr's style.

AT1 1571 If you are the singer and guitarist it is difficult trying to remember the words, play guitar at the same time and think of something witty to say between the songs,’ he says.

AT1 1971 In some ways I wish I had something to fall back on but I wanted to play guitar in a band, not waste time at university.’

C9J 1892 I've got nothing against keyboards, in fact I love keyboard music, but if you want to play guitar you should buy a guitar that was made to be played like a guitar.

C9K 22 WHAT'S NEW News & New Products Memories of Semie Moseley, and the chance to play guitar for a worthy cause.

PS - It's the definite article, not the definitive article - and in this case it certainly wasn't definitive

[chokosaki]

Thanks a lot for the help. I've told my friend but he insists the only correct way is 'play the...'. Hehe, definite eh...my bad. I know the rules and whatnot...but my lingo is off. Thanks again!

[susan53]

Language changes. In Shakepeare's time the expression was "to play on the (instrument)". Here's a quote from one of Christopher Marlowe's plays :

(Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. ) .... "We learn," he said, "to study by studying, to play on the lute by playing, to dance by dancing, ...

Notice this is not the same as the modern use of the phrase with "on" - ie to play something on the guitar : If you're a beginning guitar player, you're probably interested in finding easy songs to play on the guitar.

So the language has changed, dropping the "on" when discussing general general ability rather than playing a specific piece of music. And I'd suggest it's changing again. It may well be that 30 years ago everyone said "play the guitar", and that many people still do. It's certainly the expression that I would use - I don't think I'd ever say "play guitar". But just because it's a part of my idiolect (and of your friend's, obviously) that doesn't mean it's "right". There is no "right" and "wrong" with this sort of expression, which is just a matter of usage. If not why do we say:
I can play the guitar but
I can drive a car

Were it a "grammatical rule", the article in each of these sentences should be the same. The definite article expresses specificity while the indefinite article expresses generality - so, logically, here we need the indefinite article. In other words, we should say I can play a guitar. But we don't - nobody does - and therefore if a language learner said it we could say it was "wrong".

The use of "the" with musical instruments is a usage rule describing what people say rather than explaining why they say it (similar eg to the fact that we say black and white rather than white and black. There's no particular logic behind it - the meaning remains the same. But we always use the former and not the latter.)

And the examples I quoted before clearly show that there are now alternative possibilities of usage with this expression. When 12,700,000 people choose play guitar as opposed to 3,400,000 saying play the guitar, how can that possibly be said to be "wrong"? At the very least it's an alternative to the older form, and by now it seems that it's the older form which is dying out.

Your friend reminds me of the mother watching her son in a military parade. "Oh look" she said, "all those soldiers are out of step except my little Johnny."

[chokosaki]

Language is definitely an evolving beast. Living in China I have met people from all over the world. The changes in English remind me of evolution. The language settled in different parts of the world and eventually just changed to meet the needs of the land.

In the end, I told my friend that he can go ahead and add the 'the' to it. Better to be safe than sorry when he takes the TEFL.

Thanks again for your help

[susan53]

Ah - OK. I'd misunderstood. I'd assumed your friend was a native speaker who was insisting that "his" way of speaking was the correct way.

[chokosaki]

Nah. Though we are in China, he's from India. English is more of a second language there and used mainly for business. His English is fantastic. In this situation, I am the native speaker who was insisting my way of speaking was the correct way (that both were correct). I was just trying to help him with his TEFL but I fear I may have irked him by how insistent I was.

There was a study that was done that reminds me of this situation.

In the study, a group of liberals and conservatives were given intentionally incorrect information about important topics in the news (health care, Iraq, tax breaks). Later, the same group was given inarguable evidence that corrected the false information. Instead of being like 'oh, OK I can see that now' the group continued to stand by the false information if it supported their views.

We, as a people, are quite stubborn and set in our ways.....