2

The term in context:

Mr Obama and his daughter Sasha, 14, walk across a tarmac in New York on Friday.

Shouldn't it be

walk across tarmac

or

walk across the tarmac

or

walk across a road/footpath.

I would think that tarmac is not a word to be preceded with 'a'.

Mitch
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    Indeed. What is "a tarmac"? As far as I'm concerned tarmac is a surfacing material. but it wouldn't have been much better had the writer said ...walk across some tarmac. Surely the place that is tarmac surfaced has a name or description e.g. car park, taxi-way, etc. – WS2 Jul 23 '15 at 16:05
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    'the tarmac' is the large concrete or asphalt area where all the planes are parked and then taxi out to the runway. 'a tarmac' is an unspecified one. It sounds strange because presumably one just doesn't show up to any tarmac at random, but that the airport has been or is expected to be specified. – Mitch Jul 23 '15 at 17:09
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    In this case it is likely the location either was unknown or could not be specified, e.g. for security reasons. – Lorne Laliberte Jul 23 '15 at 19:04
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    Tarmac becomes countable when used INCORRECTLY to describe airport aprons, "ramps", and runways. – Mazura Jul 23 '15 at 21:55
  • "Tarmac" has long been used as a term for the parking and taxi areas of an airport (basically anywhere the plane runs other than the actual runway). This usage goes back to WWII, at least. Certainly saying "the tarmac" is perfectly normal, in this context. Saying "a tarmac" (ie, treating the various parking/taxi areas as individual entities rather than a single collective) is a bit unusual, but not that weird. (It should also be noted that in the UK, where the term originated., "tarmac" is used in other contexts. Hard to say what common UK usage might be, and the article is from the BBC.) – Hot Licks Jul 23 '15 at 22:42
  • @Mitch: Not in American usage, at least. "Tarmac" is a material (though usually called asphalt in American). A parking area for airplanes is called a "ramp". (And in the linked article, what they're calling "a tarmac" is a road, or perhaps a footpath on which security people are improperly driving. – jamesqf Jul 24 '15 at 00:31
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    @jamesqf What I said was american usage. I can't speak for BrE. I'm reading the artice as an American and my decription is consistent with that. I don't see anything about a road or footpath in the article. The picture there is of what I would call 'the tarmac' in AmE. (but AmE also allows tarmac as the material). So I'm confused by what you're saying. Are you saying that 'ramp' is the BrE way of saying where to park airplanes or a more technical term for parking area in AmE? – Mitch Jul 24 '15 at 01:21
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    @jamesqf: Wikipedia says apron, tarmac, ramp are all acceptable words for the place you put airplanes in AmE. I've heard both tarmac and apron used, but am quite surprised at ramp. But this is a BBC article, and ramp is an American term; you really wouldn't expect the BBC to use it. – Peter Shor Jul 24 '15 at 02:11
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    Calling the areas of an airport "tarmac" is infuriating, because Tarmac is a synonym of asphalt (originally: "Tar Macadam", after a Scottish engineer named MacAdam), not concrete, and airport surfaces are all concrete, else the airplane tires would sink in to them! Same as the reason for all those signs that say "No Semi-trucks". –  Jul 24 '15 at 02:26
  • @Mitch: Not in my experience of American usage, at least. I've held a pilot's license for over 35 years, owned my own plane for 20, and have never heard the word 'tarmac' used in connection with aviation. The picture I'm seeing in the link is of an asphalt path/roadway in a park, with a bunch of people and a car on it. Nothing to do with an airport. – jamesqf Jul 24 '15 at 04:58
  • @no comprende: It is emphatically not true that all airport surfaces are concrete. Many airports have runways and other surfaces that are asphalt, grass, or dirt. Concrete is needed only for heavy commercial aircraft. – jamesqf Jul 24 '15 at 05:05
  • @jamesqf: "all" holds for large values of "airport" in this case. No, I don't suppose that a grass strip would be called "tarmac" anyhow. The word is mainly used this way by people in the New York area, who seem to have unique terms for lots of things (like standing "on line" instead of in line). Strange that you have not heard it, since it is common in TV news. –  Jul 24 '15 at 11:39
  • @no comprende: Not watching TV news, and living in the western US would go a long way towards explaining why I never heard it. So it's a regional usage in the US. – jamesqf Jul 24 '15 at 18:23
  • @jamesqf: "we are separated by a common language". In BrE, pavement means what I would call a sidewalk, for pedestrians. BrE apparently doesn't have a corresponding term for "the roadway". Maybe this is because in England historically, the sidewalks were paved (with cobblestones) before the streets had stopped being dirt. People wanted to walk without getting horse manure on their shoes. And not much point to having 'paved' streets until... the automobile came along. No more poop! But they forgot to update their language usage. Tarmac somehow got pulled in to this sort of time-warp also. –  Jul 24 '15 at 19:15

7 Answers7

16

Oxford Dictionaries Online specifically references the tarmac

(the tarmac) A runway or other area surfaced with tarmac.

Similarly Collins

a runway at an airport: on the tarmac at Nairobi airport

The examples given are for discrete items or examples of a particular tarmac, not a reference to an undefined mass of material, such as pass me the sugar

It appears that tarmac can be a countable noun, and as such you should be able to use a tarmac. Consider the plural usage.

On tarmacs round the world, new technology is improving their durability.

This is different from the usage of the definite article with an uncountable noun. When referring to activities at several airports on the ground cannot be made plural (grounds means something different); on the tarmacs can be, although the singular mass usage could also work.

bib
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    You give examples of "the tarmac", I'm asking about using "a tarmac". Do you think "a tarmac" is correct? –  Jul 23 '15 at 16:10
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    Countable like "earth" (so, "walk across an earth")? That doesn't seem right to me. I think "the tarmac" means runway only when it includes "the" (as the definition indicates). Without the "the" it is just a material that runways and roads are covered in. – Avon Jul 23 '15 at 16:10
  • @Avon: You can certainly walk across a fox's earth, and only physical considerations would stop you walking around the earth. That would make an interesting question of its own, but it doesn't invalidate bib's point about 'the tarmac'. – Tim Lymington Jul 23 '15 at 16:16
  • I agree with @Avon. There are countless (pun intended) examples where "the" can be used with an uncountable noun: the soil, the water, the sugar – AndyT Jul 23 '15 at 16:17
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    Surely "the" does not imply countability, but the fact that the definition includes "a" does imply countability. – phoog Jul 23 '15 at 16:58
  • @phoog but the definition is for the phrase including "the". Without "the" that isn't the definition. bib's "tarmacs around the world" though does make me wonder but I think that is short for "On [the] tarmacs around the world" (retaining the "the" but not expressing it). Whereas "walk across a [the] tarmac' cannot be made to work. – Avon Jul 23 '15 at 17:42
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    @Avon only countable nouns can be pluralized (some uncountable nouns can be pluralized but only in countable senses, for example beer.). Besides, "tarmac" is a synonym for "paved area of an airport" despite the fact that they are [never paved in actual tarmac](http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Tarmac). – phoog Jul 23 '15 at 18:22
  • @phoog Indeed. I understand that: "the tarmac" is countable. "tarmac" isn't. So "On the tarmacs" is ok. "A tarmac" isn't. – Avon Jul 23 '15 at 18:25
  • @Anon that would imply that "a the tarmac" is okay, which is nonsense. The definite article is not part of the word, not part of its definition, and has nothing to do with countability. Corrected link: never paved in actual tarmac. – phoog Jul 23 '15 at 18:29
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    @phoog it is nonsense and it isn't ok and that's why. I disagree. I think it is part of the phrase that is being defined and that the "the" is what makes it countable and without it isn't (the phrase is the countable noun not the word itself). Otherwise, why did Oxford Dictionaries Online bother writing "the" in front of it? – Avon Jul 23 '15 at 18:33
  • @Avon suppose you had a container of tarmac ready to be applied to a road surface. The construction foreman tells you to "bring the tarmac." Is he referring to a runway just because he said "the tarmac"? No. – phoog Jul 23 '15 at 18:35
  • @phoog No and I'm not disagreeing with "the tarmacs". I'm disagreeing with "a tarmac". He would not say "bring a tarmac" would he? (And he would say "bring the tarmac" not "tarmacs" anyway.) – Avon Jul 23 '15 at 18:38
  • @phoog But if your point was that putting "the" in front means it is a runway then that is ridiculous. For it to mean "a runway" it must have "the" in front of it. – Avon Jul 23 '15 at 18:41
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    @Avon my point is not that putting "the" means it is a runway; that's what I thought you were saying. My point is that tarmac has a countable sense and an uncountable sense, and both senses can use the. The countable sense can also use a, just like every countable noun. I think "walk across a tarmac" is wrong, but that's because I think the entire sense of tarmac as "apron or runway" is wrong. Once we accept that this sense exists, however, we have to accept that people will say "a tarmac." – phoog Jul 23 '15 at 19:02
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    @phoog No. My point was that without "the" in front it does not mean a runway. None of the dictionaries quoted in this answer provide "tarmac" as a countable noun (only "the tarmac"). However, I am discovering that a few do: reference.com, freedictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, yourdictionary.com do. According to them, "tarmac" is a countable noun. Nevertheless, Collins, cambridge.org, Macmillan, oxforddictionaries.com do not. According to them it is not a countable noun. "A tarmac" does not mean a runway because "tarmac" does not mean that - only "the tarmac" does. – Avon Jul 23 '15 at 19:15
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    @Avon the reason that it cannot mean runway without "the" is that countable nouns require the indefinite article when used in an indefinite sense, while uncountable nouns do not. But you cannot say that "the tarmac" is a different word from "tarmac" any more than you can say that "pavement" is a different word from "the pavement." Any noun can be defined without its article, regardless of its countability. "The tarmac" can be a definite runway or a definite mass of the substance. – phoog Jul 23 '15 at 19:19
  • @phoog I'm not completely convinced pavement and tarmac are equivalent (pavement is explicitly defined as a countable noun without "the" whereas tarmac, in the same dictionaries, isn't) or, for that matter, that "a pavement" or "some pavements" would be correct either (except in the geological sense). But I'm getting less and less sure of that as this goes on and some dictionaries are explicitly saying that it is okay so I resign: apparently you can say "a tarmac" (but it does sound wrong and stupid to me). – Avon Jul 23 '15 at 19:36
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    @Avon "a pavement" is certainly countable in the British sense in which it denotes what an American would call "a sidewalk." – phoog Jul 23 '15 at 19:49
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Avon Jul 23 '15 at 19:50
7

In the example you quoted, "a tarmac" is fine. Whether it should be "tarmac" instead of "a tarmac" depends on the intended meaning, specifically whether the author was referring to the type of material ("walked across tarmac") or the type of location ("an airport tarmac").

Normally you would use "the tarmac" when referring to a specific tarmac, however in this case it is using an ambiguous reference, similar to "an airport tarmac" or "any airport's tarmac." It seems no different to saying "a road" to me. Tarmac is definitely countable when referring to a type of location.

Lorne Laliberte
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3

This is just an idomatic British usage and could be read as such:

"Mr Obama and his daughter Sasha, 14, walk across a tarmac[ed area] in New York."

I can't back this up with any real non-anecdotal sources other than the fact that I am a native British English speaker who lives in the UK, but it has a relatively common history in British English usage according to a Google Ngram, with usage seeming to peak in the 50s and again recently. Furthermore, American usage is by no means nonexistent.

Jascol
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    As a native Brit, I've never heard "a tarmac" before in my life. And it's clearly not as common as "the tarmac" – AndyT Jul 23 '15 at 16:20
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    @Andy, As a native Brit, I've heard it many times. Also I never stated it was more common than 'the tarmac,' just not uncommon. – Jascol Jul 23 '15 at 16:21
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    As a native Brit, not only have I never heard this usage, but it's so non-standard I don't think I'd have accurately guessed what it might mean without the picture to help (my guess would have bean "crossed the road"). It sounds like nonsense gibberish. – Nye Jul 23 '15 at 21:02
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    I don't think it means crossed the road. I think they're talking about the tarmac at an airport. There are multiple pictures in the article, and some of them do show airports. – Peter Shor Jul 24 '15 at 02:36
2

I think there's room for disagreement here.

This usage of tarmac almost always appears as the tarmac, and refers to the paved area of an airport intended for airplanes to stand/taxi on. English speakers hear this, and then (unconsciously) classify tarmac as either a mass noun or a countable noun. But there are two possible ways to do this.

  • Tarmac is a countable noun, and means the paved area at an airport. Each airport only has one tarmac, but if you are talking about multiple airports, there are multiple tarmacs. This is analogous to the word statehouse in American English. A statehouse is the building containing the seat of government of an American state, and there is only one per state. As a result, you almost always hear the statehouse and not a statehouse or statehouses. However, despite this, it is manifestly clear that the word statehouse is countable.

  • Tarmac is an uncountable noun, and means the paving surface at an airport. This is analogous to the ground. You can say you dropped your wallet on the ground, but you can't say "I must have dropped my wallet on a ground", even if you don't know which of various islands your dropped you wallet on.

The reporter clearly has internalized the first interpretation, and because he isn't specifying whether Obama and his daughter saw the Manhattan skyline from the tarmac at Newark, Laguardia, or JFK airport, says "a tarmac". Somebody who had internalized the second interpretation would have said "the tarmac".

Which is "correct"? I don't think there's any way to decide.

Peter Shor
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On the link quoted in the question it does not appear that the President is indeed at an airport. There is a large tree adjacent to him, and park benches. Thus the discussion about whether airports have one or more tarmacs doesn't seem to apply here.

Mr Obama and his daughter Sasha, 14, walk across a tarmac in New York on Friday.

For me that sounds awkward. How many tarmacs are there in the vicinity?

He also doesn't appear to be walking across it, but rather along it. I would have written:

Mr Obama and his daughter Sasha, 14, walk along a footpath in New York on Friday.

(substitute "sidewalk" for "footpath" if you want)

Later in the article the author says:

Afterwards my colleagues and I head across the tarmac to an Osprey aircraft, propellers spinning.

Just as a guess, this is a simple typo by the journalist. At one point it is "a" tarmac, later in the same article it is "the" tarmac (although admittedly this time at an airport).

(Edited to add)

Now that Peter Shor has cleared up that the first photo does not relate to the sentence underneath it, I am going to vote for the "the tarmac". In much the same way you might say you saw something "lying on the ground" (rather than "lying on a ground") I suggest "the tarmac" is better.

You could qualify it (eg, "a football ground") in which case "a" is better. In the same way you could say "an airport tarmac" (as opposed to, say, a school ground tarmac).

Nick Gammon
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    There are multiple pictures in that article, and several of them do show airport tarmacs. The top one (which probably should have been of the tarmac, given the order of events in the article) looks to me like Central Park. The BBC simply put the pictures in the wrong order. – Peter Shor Jul 24 '15 at 02:29
  • Ah OK. Well I'm going to go with the tarmac in much the same way you say someone is walking along the ground not a ground. – Nick Gammon Jul 24 '15 at 02:32
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    And in fact, the article says that Obama points out Manhattan to his daughter from the tarmac; you can see the Manhattan skyline quite well from JFK and Newark airports, but not from Central Park (which is my guess at where the first picture was taken). – Peter Shor Jul 24 '15 at 02:40
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    @PeterShor More precisely, he taps her shoulder and points towards Manhattan, which wouldn’t be possible at all if they were in Central Park at the time, ’cause he’d already be in Manhattan. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 24 '15 at 12:32
0

Tarmac is not countable, and I've only ever heard it referred to as 'the tarmac'. If someone said 'a tarmac' I would wonder if they knew what tarmac was. In a given context, there is only ever one tarmac, even if there are several pieces of bitumenised (or whatever that stuff is) surface in the location. It functions a bit like 'the red carpet', or 'the catwalk' or perhaps even 'the toilet' - a building may have many countable toilets, but we don't say that someone has 'gone to a toilet'.

DrSpleen
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    However, we do quite happily say, “Is there a toilet nearby?” and the like. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 23 '15 at 17:10
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    The thing is that "tarmac" is a synonym for "paved area of an airport" despite the fact that they are never paved in actual tarmac. In that sense, it is countable. – phoog Jul 23 '15 at 18:30
  • @phoog - What do you mean, "never paved"? A gravel footpath is "paved". – Hot Licks Jul 24 '15 at 01:41
  • @HotLicks I mean that they are never paved in tarmac, just as I am never dressed in deerskin. That is, they are always paved in something other than tarmac. – phoog Jul 24 '15 at 01:52
  • @phoog - OK, that's more or less correct. Goes back to WWII or before and military airfields, I believe. The (originally) gravel aprons and taxiways were tarred to keep down the dust, resembling but probably not really identical to British "tarmacadam" (which we in the US would call "asphalt"). Eventually the term "tarmac" came to mean the apron/taxiway itself, rather than its paving material. In books written about WWII airfields in England you see the term "tarmac" used quite often in this sense. The term was brought back to the US, but the meaning of "paving material" stayed behind. – Hot Licks Jul 24 '15 at 02:18
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    I've always heard people talk about "the statehouse" (the seat of government in an American state), and never about "a statehouse" or "statehouses". But this doesn't mean that "statehouse" is an uncountable noun. – Peter Shor Jul 24 '15 at 02:33
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No it is not correct. tarmac is not countable (reference: oxford learner's dictionary). This means that phrases like "a tarmac" or "two tarmacs" are incorrect.

AndyT
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  • I'm marking this as correct... but comment if you disagree –  Jul 23 '15 at 16:27
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    How is tarmac not countable? Definition 2 of the link you provided and this first noun definition both suggest it. In my experience, "a tarmac" is synonymous with an airport's runway, i.e., The airport has three tarmacs to handle traffic. – VampDuc Jul 23 '15 at 16:44
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    It may be unusual to use tarmac in this way, but it's no more grammatically incorrect than it is to say have a discussion over a coffee. – choster Jul 23 '15 at 17:09
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    This answer is quite simply put incorrect. Using tarmac as a count noun is far less common than using it as a non-count noun, but it is by no means ungrammatical or unheard of. There are plenty of examples floating around with constructions like “Work crews have cleared city roads and re-opened highways, and the airport is pretty much back to normal, with all three tarmacs working on Tuesday” (CNN) or “He was moved to tears by the huge crowds at both tarmacs” (link). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 23 '15 at 17:19
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    If you're using it as jargon for a runway, like they do in airports it is countable. However the proper sense of the word is shorthand for the material the runway is comprised of, which is tarmacadam. Contingent materials usually aren't countable, unless there are multiple noteworthy varieties to blend for the purpose of imparting qualities, which is an entirely different context. This practice is similar to calling multiple dirt roads, three dirts or multiple paved roads, three asphalts, which if done, likely isn't standard English. – Tonepoet Jul 23 '15 at 17:37
  • Agree with this answer. Consider 'walking across a concrete'. – user207421 Jul 23 '15 at 23:41
  • Each airport has one tarmac (the tarmac), but I suspect that the reporter considers that if you have multiple airports, you get multiple tarmacs, in which case they are countable. – Peter Shor Jul 24 '15 at 02:28
  • @Tonepoet Calling a particular kind of area made of (≈ paved with) Tarmac a tarmac is not really very different from calling a container made of glass a glass, or calling a sword forged from steel a steel. It’s a type of material synecdoche that happens sometimes—not really all that unusual. The fact that it has happened with Tarmac, but not with dirt or asphalt, is basically just coincidence. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 24 '15 at 12:29
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    Ah, oops. I'm sorry for the confusion: I meant continuous, rather than contingent which makes no sense. As long as I'm clarifying, I also mean that more-so in the sense that it can be considered continuous, rather than if it really is. Discrete objects are different, especially if it's holdable, as you have shown with glass cups, although I haven't seen weaponized steel pluralized (taste my steel, steel against steel). As far as things you actually walk across, the only exception I can think of now is a carpet (building material), which is arguably a discrete object made mostly out of fabric. – Tonepoet Jul 24 '15 at 14:46
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    Wow. This really is clearly a difficult question to answer. I provide a dictionary link which clearly states [uncountable] and yet get more downvotes than upvotes! I, personally, find it very telling that many dictionaries (not all), refer to *the tarmac* as an airport's apron, and not just tarmac. Using "the" in a dictionary definition is certainly unusual, and in my opinion it is because "tarmac" can only be used as a noun with the word "the" in front, not "a" or "one". – AndyT Jul 24 '15 at 17:29
  • I marked it as Unanswered –  Jul 28 '15 at 16:18
  • @BrianBishop - Fair enough. Having looked through all the answers again, I think Peter Shor's summary of both points of view is the best overall answer, mainly because it doesn't actually make a definitive choice as to whether it's right or wrong! – AndyT Jul 29 '15 at 07:30