In the Wikipedia article on Cloakroom there is the following paragraph:
Attended cloakrooms, or coat checks, are staffed rooms where coats and bags can be stored securely. Typically, a ticket or receipt is given to the customer, with a corresponding ticket attached to the garment or item.
I am trying to figure out why it uses "the customer" and "the garment or item", instead of "a customer" and "a garment or item". These nouns were not introduced before so we don't actually know them to use the definite article.
Could anyone explain that, please?
Thanks!
Best Answer
After the word typically, a scenario is set describing a transaction where customer and garment or item must be present to form the scenario. They are thus assumed, and get definite articles. The items that the article wants to introduce into that scenario and discuss are "a ticket or receipt" and a corresponding ticket, so they get indefinite articles.
At any rate, the passage as it is seems idiomatic to me, and if it used all indefinite articles, it would seem strange.