Could anyone kindly comment on the usage of zero article in ...pen in hand as it appears in the following context:
Hunched over his desk, pen in hand, he was the spitting image of his father at work.
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1What would you like to know specifically about this zero-article example? – Lawrence Mar 27 '16 at 11:18
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@BillJ The sentence is a quote from Dictionay.com: spit and image is and idiom too, albeit not as common as spitting image. – Jacinto Mar 27 '16 at 13:05
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Just an example that you can drop articles and possessives when they don't achieve much to get a shorter and more impressive phrase. Instead of "a pen in his hand" the author says "pen in hand" without any loss of clarity. I would say a literary device.
rogermue
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