When you talk about any day in general, which article would you prefer in the expression "start a/the day."
Can you please explain the logic behind your choice?
I searched for some context in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, where the phrase seems to mean any day in general (at least, as it seems to me), but the article usage is different. All in all, the seems to prevail.
When she rouses me out of a dead sleep in the morning with soft kisses and she acts all playful and cuddly. I can't get enough of that. It's my favorite way to start a day.
I often start the day by puttering–watering the garden, sweeping my studio floor, putting on some inspiring music.
Best Answer
There's no logic for deciding whether to use "to start a day" versus "to start the day" in this case, just a personal choice. It's strictly a style preference that has no effect on the meaning in most cases: any day in general. This is different from the idiomatic American English "I went to the hospital", which is much more common than "I went to a hospital".
I'd use the hospital if I'd gone to the local hospital or to the one I always go to in my city (I have three choices here in my Taiwan hometown) and a hospital if I'd gone to a hospital in a different town or country. I might also use a hospital if my visit were for reasons other than a regularly scheduled medical appointment, a trip to refill my prescriptions, or a trip to the emergency room -- as in "I went to a hospital to buy one of those because I know they sell them in every hospital in Taiwan". But this logic doesn't hold for "to start {a / the} day".
The effect that it has on style in this sentence is minimal because both sentences are the same length, and the two words sound almost the same. OTOH, maybe I'd be more inclined to use the day if I were talking particularly about today rather than every day in general. Thinking a little more about the two phrases, I believe that I prefer the sound of the day, but I'm sure that it's a personal and idiosyncratic preference rather than a logical preference.