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I'm sure this might have been asked, but couldn't find it, so forgive me if it is a duplicate.

Is saying "I had a fever" correct ?

I've also heard people saying "I had fever",

but don't have any proof of either being correct.

My guess is, they're both right.

tchrist
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Some Guy
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    From Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb When I was a child I had a fever. You can drop the article, but it's normally present. – FumbleFingers Sep 30 '11 at 14:10
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    Cool. Thanks. I can't believe my English teacher tried to mock me for saying that. – Some Guy Sep 30 '11 at 14:11
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    And yet you would normally say "I had the flu" and "I had toncillitis". – Urbycoz Sep 30 '11 at 14:36
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    @Urbycoz: Doubtless tonsilitis (the kissing disease) does have a bit of a peak in September/October when vast numbers of young people start living away from home as they enter tertiary education. But 'flu has more of a reputation for coming in "waves". So you say you had the 'flu because there's often a sense of the particular strain of 'flu doing rounds at the time. – FumbleFingers Sep 30 '11 at 16:24
  • @FumbleFingers - I don't think Pink Floyd lyrics count as authoritative on proper English language usage....but they damn well ought to. :-) – T.E.D. Sep 30 '11 at 17:45
  • @T.E.D.: IMHO Roger Waters is an articulate speaker, so I see no problem citing him for a typical usage. But here's a more broad-based selection from NGrams if he needs backing up. – FumbleFingers Sep 30 '11 at 17:53
  • @FumbleFingers - I'd classify him more as a poet myself. The thing is poetry (particularly when set to music) often has to take a bit of license. – T.E.D. Sep 30 '11 at 20:55
  • @T.E.D.: When you're in a hole, stop digging! :) – FumbleFingers Sep 30 '11 at 21:00
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    @FumbleFingers - What? Can't hear you over this steam-shovel... – T.E.D. Oct 03 '11 at 13:28
  • Why put the apostrophe there 'flu and not there flu' or maybe both? In the US I usually just see flu. – GEdgar Mar 30 '13 at 12:36
  • I know I shouldn't, but I shiver when I hear someone has a temperature? My Collins labels it as informal. – DjinTonic Jul 25 '21 at 21:05

4 Answers4

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Working on the principle that "correct language" is defined as the common usage among native speakers of the language: "I had a fever" is correct. I don't think I've ever seen "I had fever" in print and very rarely spoken.

In general, I think the rule is that when you are referring to something that is countable, you use an article. When you are referring to something that is not countable, you do not. Thus you would say, "I had a dog" or "I had the chair", because we can count dogs and chairs, i.e. there might be one dog, two dogs, etc. But you say, "I had food" or "I had happiness" because you cannot count "food" or "happiness", i.e. you would not normally say "two foods" or "two happinesses". Think of "a" and "the" as taking the place of the number "one".

Fever is countable. You could say "I had two fevers this year: one in January and another in March."

Which brings to my mind an interesting point: Some diseases are not considered countable. You wouldn't say, "I had two leprosies" or "I had two diabeteses". So we don't use "a" with those. I'm not quite sure what the rule is. Maybe: Long term chronic diseases are not countable, but short term diseases are? Like, "I had a fever", "I had a headache", "I had a cold", but "I had leprosy", "I had cancer", "I had manic-depressive disorder". Hmm, this is starting to sound like, "I have hypochondria".

Jay
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    Here’s an example from a 1953 publication:

    ‘I had fever all night, but my sister said I was lying and no one ran after me, and she said ghosts were in peepul trees, not mango trees.’

     – Barrie England Sep 30 '11 at 14:56
  • What was the publication. It sounds great! – Urbycoz Sep 30 '11 at 14:59
  • ‘Phoenix fled and other stories’ by Attia Hosain – Barrie England Sep 30 '11 at 15:56
  • I know how to use articles, I just never thought of using articles differently for chronic and acute diseases. You make a good point there. And, well, there was my English teacher telling me I was wrong that brought me here wanting to clear it up. Thanks. – Some Guy Sep 30 '11 at 15:57
  • I commented to OP on Pink Floyd's usage with the article. In the spirit of balance, here's Peggy Lee's You give me fever without an article. – FumbleFingers Sep 30 '11 at 16:27
  • Okay, I'll concede you have counter-examples! But I think the common usage is still overwhelmingly "I had a fever". When were your examples printed? Maybe that's an older usage? – Jay Sep 30 '11 at 20:51
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    This is related to the common use of 'a' or 'an' before uncountable nouns to indicate a type or instance of the uncountable noun. Like "a dense fog" or "a hush fell over the crowd". When you say "I had a fever" you mean a single episode or incidence of fever. – David Schwartz Oct 01 '11 at 04:46
  • May as well weigh in, because "I don't merely play a doctor on TV; I AM one!" And as it happens, saying "have fever" is not uncommon in medical contexts, but both forms are used, with no particular reason for choosing one over the other. I do agree that "have a fever" is more common in general, and I "have a feeling" ;) that countability has something to do with this. But, as always, there are exceptions, for which I have no explanation, as in the example already cited, "I had tonsillitis" (episodes of which are countable). (Note the correct spelling of "tonsillitis" here.) – John M. Landsberg Mar 30 '13 at 07:11
  • Perhaps 'I had (a) fever' is short for 'I had a bout of fever' or something of that ilk. – Anonym Feb 11 '14 at 06:28
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Yes, "I had a fever" is correct, and "I had fever" is incorrect, at least in US English.

EDIT: I was unaware of the usage of the latter construction. I must now change my answer to "I've never heard it," and "It's much less common (at least during my lifetime it has ben)."

Google books "had fever" vs. "had a fever"

Stop Slandering Monica Cellio
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"I had fever" is not good English in any dialect I have ever heard. There's probably one somewhere.

@FumbleFingers found a lot of examples he linked in the comments below, most of which appear to me to be from medical texts or quotes from medical professionals. So this may be a somewhat common phrasing in the medical community.

The only other time I can think of where I've heard the "a" left off the front is in the old Peggy Lee song "You Give Me Fever". Perhaps your teacher heard it (it's a pretty hot song) and thought that was normal.

T.E.D.
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  • I gave an example above. – Barrie England Sep 30 '11 at 17:54
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    Here are a couple of thousand written instances of he has fever. I don't think it's particularly dialectal - just a less common form. – FumbleFingers Sep 30 '11 at 18:51
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    @FumbleFingers - I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with your assertion about those instance not being "dialectal". I thumbed through a couple of pages of the actual hits it produced, and nearly all of them seemed to have been uttered by actual medical professionals. Perhaps this is something more common in that arena? Perhaps the fact that they are using the word as an example of a symptom rather than a full-on explanation of person's problem is the difference? (Good find though) – T.E.D. Sep 30 '11 at 20:48
  • Well, I just looked at results 91-100 so I'd be on different examples. One was clearly a clinician, one was part of a language teaching example, and the rest all looked perfectly ordinary usage to me. Bear in mind I'm not suggesting it's anywhere near as common as a fever - just that it's not particularly rare or restricted to a few dialectal contexts. – FumbleFingers Sep 30 '11 at 20:58
  • ...either way, its a strong enough find that I think this answer needed to be edited. – T.E.D. Sep 30 '11 at 21:01
  • I wouldn't consider songs too seriously as references for grammar rules. Songs and poems often violate conventional rules to achieve a desired rhyme or rhythm. – Jay Oct 04 '11 at 15:22
  • @Jay - Agree entirely. I made roughly the same point in the comments on the question itself (some don't seem to agree with us though). – T.E.D. Oct 04 '11 at 17:50
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I too have heard 'a fever'. But I think the reason for its being considered a countable noun is not that I got one in January and the other one in June and so on. Much rather, there are different types of fever out of which I got one; hence, we consider fever a countable noun.

RegDwigнt
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Amita Buch
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