AS Hornby says in one of his books that we should always use the before mosque, and temple unlike church. When we go to a church for prayer, we say
I am going to church
while we say
I am going to the church
when we go to a church to whitewash it.
I thought, until I read Hornby that the same rule applied to mosque and temple. But Hornby says that we should say
I am going to the mosque
whether we are going there for prayer or not. To make it clear one should add a phrase with the sentence like for prayer or for whitewashing it.
Another British grammarian named Hewings says in his Advanced English Grammar that the same rule as that of church applies to mosque. In his opinion one should say
I am going to mosque
when he is going there for prayer and
I am going to the mosque
when he is going there for some other thing than prayer.
Both are British grammarians of English. Who is to be followed, Hornby or Hewings?
Best Answer
This is largely a question about the quirks of English usage.
Nobody would dream of saying I'm going to dentist / doctor / infirmary / academy / cathedral for either the building- or the congregation- / lesson- / treatment- sense. Contrast I'm going to hospital / school / college / university / chapel.
Hewings is trying to standardise practice so that 'going to the X' always means just visiting the particular building / other location, while 'going to X' means attending X with all the ramifications. He's trying to enforce his own prescriptive rule, whereas normal usage is far more idiosyncratic. He might even imagine that his position has some moral high ground. Nice thought, but doomed to failure.
Incidentally, the church I'm part of emphasises the 'people are the church' polyseme rather than the building one, so we are Church and we meet at 'the building' on occasion.