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Please consider the following, guys. I met a good and a bad mother on the way here What I am trying to say: There were two mothers, one bad and one good. Is it okay to use that construction? Or need I remove the articles and use mothers instead?

Fadli Sheikh
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    Does this answer your question? Plural or singular noun when it refers to two things in a list In your example, repeating the article strongly implies there are *two different mothers, whereas omitting the second one implies a single* mother (who is both good *and* bad). Plural *mothers* (with *no* articles, obviously) could refer to *any number* of mothers - some good, some bad. – FumbleFingers May 18 '20 at 10:58
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    (a) 'I met a good mother and a bad mother ....' Totally correct, though a little ponderous in many contexts. // (b) 'I met a good and a bad mother ....' Totally correct; the usual choice. // (c) 'I met a good and bad mother ....' Sounds odd, and means you met one mother who displayed both good and bad traits. // (d) 'I met good and bad mothers ....' At least 2 in each category. – Edwin Ashworth May 18 '20 at 11:17
  • @EdwinAshworth what if I said I met good and bad mothers, one good and one bad. Would it make any sense? – Fadli Sheikh May 18 '20 at 11:25
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    No, that's not idiomatic. It might just be used by an educated native speaker for effect, probably comedic, but it is a marked usage. 'Yesterday I met two mothers – one good and one bad' is more natural. – Edwin Ashworth May 18 '20 at 11:57
  • Nice explanation. Thanks a lot :) – Fadli Sheikh May 18 '20 at 12:16
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    @FadliSheikh I met good and bad mothers, one good and one bad sounds quite reasonable if used in the context of a riddle (How many mothers did I meet?) but the fact that there are only two makes it slightly unusual. On the other hand, purely in terms of how we use language, this would be fine: I met good and bad mothers, some tall, some short, five good, and one bad. The reason why that sounds more natural is because there are many mothers, not just two. If there are only two, we would normally phrase it this way: I met two* mothers, one good and one bad.* – Jason Bassford May 18 '20 at 15:12
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    @FadliSheikh But, also, it would be somewhat redundant to mention good and bad mothers twice, Even better, in case of many mothers, would be one of the following: (1) I met good and bad mothers, some tall and some short. (2) I met many mothers, some tall, some short, five good, and one bad. In short, there are multiple issues with the original sentence in the comment describing only two mothers. However, purely syntactically, it's fine. – Jason Bassford May 18 '20 at 15:17
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    Does this answer your question? Shortening sentence by removing nouns repeating in clauses Your actual question is not just about nouns and adjectives, but the omission of a noun in any repeated (and parallel) construction. – Jason Bassford May 18 '20 at 15:21
  • Got it. Thanks a lot for the great answers. Now, how do I pick out one as the best answer? – Fadli Sheikh May 18 '20 at 15:47

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