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On a fire extinguisher's cover, "In case of fire, break glass" may be written.

As you see, in short, instructional contexts, one often finds articles being omitted. Is this grammatically correct? Is there a name for this kind of writing?

Must it instead be written as "In case of a fire, break the glass"? This omission of articles is very common in instruction manuals and tutorials.

Heartspring
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baral
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    Not only articles can be omitted. Instructions attached to something don't need to mention that object. Like close cover before striking, or close before striking match on the matchbook cover. There's a wonderful paper by Jerry Sadock on the subject, titled "Read at your own risk: Syntactic and semantic horrors you can find in your medicine chest". – John Lawler Jun 17 '23 at 16:11
  • Telegraphese has a different set of rules from normal running text. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 17 '23 at 18:28

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