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Is there any difference between

I am not having a lunch tomorrow.

and

I am not having lunch tomorrow.

This is a follow up question of : About the use of future tense.

Community
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Stanley
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1 Answers1

13

"A lunch" in your example (in a business context, anyway) would generally mean "a lunch meeting". In other words, "I am not scheduled to meet anyone for lunch tomorrow."

"Lunch", by contrast, would simply refer to the meal, or the food you eat in the middle of the day. So: "I'm not going to eat anything tomorrow between morning and evening."

MT_Head
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  • @MT_Head: Absolutely. You'd wouldn't just stay in the office and have a lunch on your own. – FumbleFingers May 22 '11 at 20:31
  • @FumbleFingers - Strangely, the following constructions are used interchangeably: "Bob, are you coming to lunch with us?" 1) "No, I brought lunch from home." 2) "No, I brought a lunch from home." 3) "No, I brought my lunch." – MT_Head May 22 '11 at 20:48
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    @MT_Head: You're positively on fire today! I think those three are really just matters of style. I don't much like the third one - but that's probably just because I know Bob often has baloney, which I'm not partial to! – FumbleFingers May 22 '11 at 20:59
  • @MT_Head: +1 I think I brought a lunch from home refers to an implicit lunch [meal], which, though possible, I agree with FF is a bit awkward/informal. The other a lunch has the article because it refers to a lunch [meeting], as you have shown. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica May 22 '11 at 21:10
  • @Cerberus - As you know, the meanings of phrases often change depending on context; I probably shouldn't have introduced those three examples, because they'll only muddy the waters for the OP. In my examples, I think that "lunch" in "I brought lunch" / "I brought my lunch" is abstract (could be a Snickers and an apple rolling around in my briefcase) while "I brought a lunch" implies a paper bag, or bento box, or something along those lines. But those shadings of meaning are pretty arbitrary... – MT_Head May 22 '11 at 22:22
  • @FumbleFingers - I don't much care for "I brought my lunch" either, and I agree about baloney. Sadly, though, the phrase is fairly common in the cube-dweller dialect of American English. – MT_Head May 22 '11 at 22:25
  • Besides a lunch meeting, "having a lunch" could also mean you were hosting it. As in "We're having a lunch to celebrate John's award." – Peter Shor May 23 '11 at 00:12
  • @Peter - Excellent point - but again it becomes a scheduled event rather than just the ingestion of food. – MT_Head May 23 '11 at 02:56
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    How's this for a rule of thumb: in a social context, the inclusion of "a" changes lunch from a meal to an event (meeting, party); in a personal context, it changes lunch from a concept (food) to a concrete object (brown bag, bento box). – MT_Head May 23 '11 at 02:59
  • see http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/20492/to-have-a-dinner-vs-to-have-dinner-which-one-is-correct, but this doesn't cover the "brought a lunch" distinction. – Colin Fine May 23 '11 at 12:52