Articles – Difference in Meaning: ‘Concern’, ‘The Concern’, or ‘Concerns’?

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The definition of concern can be found in any dictionaries like this link.

Now, let's focus on a single example from that dictionary:

Many people expressed concern over moves to restore the death penalty.

I can understand this, according to the dictionary it's an uncountable noun and hence no article, but my question is what change in meaning occurs if I rewrite the above sentence to

  1. Many people expressed the concern over moves to restore the death penalty.

  2. Many people expressed concerns over moves to restore the death penalty.

Best Answer

Many people expressed the concern over moves to restore the death penalty.

As a standalone sentence this is unnatural. Upon hearing this, the natural response would be:

What concern are you talking about?

It's only if a particular concern had been previously mentioned that the use of the definite article would be natural:

There is concern about a new proposal. Many people expressed the concern over moves to restore the death penalty.


Your second sentence, using the plural concerns and no article, is fine as a standalone sentence.

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