Learn English – Can you say “a one thing?”

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In patent context, I came across an expression "a one end of a conductor and an other end of the conductor."

I am wondering why it is "a one end", instead of just "one end", since you don't need an article a/an in front of "one."

Best Answer

I think this is relating to the context in particular. It does not seem to be a typo. I would write:

"a 'one end' and an 'other end' of the conductor"

Or at least, this is how I interpret it. It seems to be referring to a 'one end' as a thing in particular with a specific meaning. Same for 'other end'.

To give an example of this sort of thing in common usage, "other half" is a phrase for a (romantic) long-term partner. One way to ask "is Peter in a relationship?" is "does Peter have an 'other half'?" In this case it would be certainly wrong to say "another half" because the phrase 'other half' has its own meaning. Similarly one might say "does that line have an other end?" rather than "another end".

If this is the case (which I strongly suspect it is, but cannot be sure without the rest of the document), it would have been better for the author to use single quotes, as I have done, but I still think it makes sense.

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