Why don’t we “watch the television”? The article is used in other cases: we “listen to the radio”, “watch the game”, “read a book”. (“Listening to music” is the only other article-less audience activity I can call to mind.)
My grandparents certainly did watch “the teleVISion,” but they reached maturity in the days before TV. And they often referred to it as “the set.”
Usually I watch television, but turn off the television.
We listen to music, buy we also play a song and we watch a program. We often use the word television in the more general sense of broadcasting or programming.
I’m pretty sure that in my position as a Brit I “watch the television”.
Yes, as a Kiwi I turn on the tv or watch the television.
Do you? If someone asked what you were doing at 9pm last night, would you say you were watching the television, not “I was watching television/TV”? Though you might well say the telly instead of just telly.
Not sure why it happens, though. I thought perhaps it had something to do with the other phrases referring more obviously to the devices themselves, but I’m not sure that theory holds water.
We often omit the definite article when referring to an activity rather than the tangible thing itself. Regard: go to school, go to church, go to temple, go to work. In these cases we are referring to the activity of studying, worshipping and employment.
I think the same reasoning applies to television. We’re referring to the activity of being entertained, informed or educated by a tv program, rather than sitting on the sofa and staring at the inanimate box of circuits and wires.
Watch the television: it has an exploding penguin on it.
My husband’s grandmother used to ask if we wanted to “look at TV.” I think that was a fairly common phrase in her age group. I have long been fascinated by the generational difference in usage – “watching TV” seems to imply paying a lot more attention to the program than “looking at TV” does.
You might not be able to “read book” in the US, but you can “read literature” or “read science fiction”.
Could “television” in the OP be a mass noun?
Yeah, but when you’re sick you’re “in hospital” whereas we Yanks are “in the hospital”.
Both “I was watching television” and “I was watching the television” wouldn’t sound odd in British English.
How about if you used “telly” instead? Would “I was watching telly” sound odd?
A mass noun is one in which “any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete subsets”, according to the Wikipedia article. I see the distinction between “that television” (or “that brand of television”) vice “entertainment that I watch on my set”.
The same distinction may be drawn between my church building and participation in “the church triumphant throughout the ages, terrible as an army with banners” (C. S. Lewis.)
Linguistic use of mass nouns does vary between languages. British English speakers: my B. English is outdated, but my recollection is that one watched “the telly”. Is that not still the case?
I will think of it as a mass noun. I will now go drink water.
Nope, completely normal.
I’m British too, and if someone said they were watching the television I’d wonder if they thought it was going to jump up and run around the room.
Maybe it’s regional. Both sound perfectly fine to me and I *thinK I use it with the definite article usually.
Roger Mellie, The Man on the Telly
I also have a vague feeling that “the television” is a regional thing, or maybe an older person’s thing (no offence, amanset). At least it sounds like something my older, northern relatives would say. Whether due to age or northernness, I am not sure.
I’m Australian… to me “The Man on the Telly” means he’s a man that appears on television (or should that be on -the- television, I’m all confused now), but when his show was actually in progress, he would be “on telly”
But as per amanset, neither would sound odd to me. As opposed to “being in the hospital” which would.
There was a (bad) joke that I found funny as a child:
“Is there anything on the telly?”
“Just the goldfish bowl, same as usual.”
For me, an Irish person, “watching the television” or “watching television” are both okay. So when I read in the OP “Why don’t we watch the television?”, it sounded more like a suggestion than a question.
However, he got game.