Try making it with "a" - if thing can be "a thing" then it could be "the thing" but if it can't be "a thing" it definitely can't be "the thing" either.
In the 16th century, being "on the money" meant an arrow or a dart being on (or near) a specific physical coin (i.e. the money), like in a tossing or shooting bar-bet.
Being on merely a money (or some money) would likely not be as impressive in said circumstances, and so whilst being grammatically possible in English, it shouldn't seem so likely the sort of thing anyone would ever have had to say.
Weirdly, as an en_GB native, neither of these seems wrong to me. I suspect one is British and one is American, and too much TV has driven me to accept the American one.
Both of these are common in the US. It doesn't seem like there's any strong regional connection.
Judging from a search, "play the piano" is about 5 times as common as "play piano", but there are also many sources which uses both versions in close proximity, apparently interchangeably.
With context these can mean different things. You might also play a piano, or hire either a player piano, or a piano player.
If you are answering which instrument you play, it's the former, but if we are talking the profession it's the latter, because you don't say then that you play a piano.
theanonymousone · · focus · HN ↗
Pre-LLM I was joking that real AI is whatever can make that decision correctly 100% of times.
geocar · · focus · HN ↗
m12k · · focus · HN ↗
geocar · · focus · HN ↗
Being on merely a money (or some money) would likely not be as impressive in said circumstances, and so whilst being grammatically possible in English, it shouldn't seem so likely the sort of thing anyone would ever have had to say.
rom1v · · focus · HN ↗
ad133 · · focus · HN ↗
jacobolus · · focus · HN ↗
Judging from a search, "play the piano" is about 5 times as common as "play piano", but there are also many sources which uses both versions in close proximity, apparently interchangeably.
geocar · · focus · HN ↗
If you are answering which instrument you play, it's the former, but if we are talking the profession it's the latter, because you don't say then that you play a piano.
landdate · · focus · HN ↗
that is just my intuition as native english speaker, but the former cojld also mean the latter and i have seen it used like such before.
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