Hello everyone,
Please look at the sentence below.
1/The escaping prisoner camped in a wood but he didn’t light a fire because SMOKE rising from the wood might attract attention.
As far as I know,we use THE before nouns which imply things that have been already known.So in this case Smoke has been already defined because there is a participle phrase behind it.So why don’t we use THe before smoke.
When a writer is speaking, or a character is thinking, generally, there’s no need for “the”.
Smoke rising from (burning) wood might attract attention.
In yours, you need to either say “the smoke”, or get rid of “the” before “wood”.
The smoke rising from the wood might attract attention.
Smoke rising from wood might attract attention.
Still, I’d prefer “The escaping prisoner camped in a wood but he didn’t light a fire because the smoke might attract attention”.
Also, there was no smoke, the author was considering what might happen.
I think if the prisoner had lit a fire, the author could have written “and the smoke attacted unnecessary attention”
Not sure what that has to do with the use of “the”.