My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

D
EMONSTRATE YOUR DETERMINATION
(
OR
, D
ETERMINERS
)
In fact articles are a subdivision of a class of words called determiners,  which
includes possessive adjectives , demonstratives and quantifiers .
Possessive adjectives – my , his , her , its , our , your , their – perform the useful
task of telling us what belongs to, or is related to, something else.
The captain stood firm at the bow of his ship as its deck was consumed in flames.
The bemused sailors redoubled their efforts and extinguished the blaze without his
assistance.
Used carelessly, however, they can cause confusion:
Both  the  fashion  editors  liked  her  new  hat. (Whose  hat?  If  you  mean  that  each
fashion editor had a new hat that she liked, try, Each of the fashion editors liked
her new hat , and if you mean there was only one new hat, be specific: Both the
fashion editors liked Susannah’s new hat. )
Mrs Jones and Mrs Brown disliked their neighbours . (Whose neighbours? Did
Mrs Jones and Mrs Brown cohabit and dislike the same neighbours? Or did each
woman  dislike  her  own  neighbours?  Or  possibly  her  own  neighbours  and  the
other woman’s neighbours, too?)

---

Demonstratives  are  the  words  this/that,  these/those  (which  may  also  be
demonstrative pronouns, see
here
). When used as determiners, they precede the
noun  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  or  a  ,  but  are  used  to  differentiate  between
things that are near at hand (this, these ) and things that are farther away (that,
those ). The nearness or farness may refer to time or space:
Does my bum look big in this dress (the one I have on)?
Ah, do you remember that weekend in Paris (back in the day)?
I have never seen these people  before  (though  they  are  standing  in  front  of  me
now).
Oh bother, if I had known those chocolates (the ones I have eaten, so they are now
in the past) had arsenic in them, I would have left them alone.
Quantifiers are words such as no, none of, either, neither, any, both, few, little,
half, etc. Again, some of these words may serve as other parts of speech (either
or neither as a conjunction, for example, see
here
, or little as  an  adjective,  see
here
), but in this context they go before the noun and tell us the number or, well,
quantity of something:
Which of the contestants will I back? None of the above.