Hi, All!

In the translation of Jules Verne's "The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras" (project Gutenberg) there are these "table" sentences:

-----Beginning of the citation-----
Hatteras unfolded on the table one of the excellent charts published
in 1859 by the order of the Admiralty.

..."Here is the chart of the Polar Seas," resumed the doctor, who had
brought it to the table;


... Johnson and Bell had a good supper awaiting them.
But before they sat down to table, the doctor said in a voice of
triumph, as he pointed to his two companions,--
----- The end of the citation -----

Can you say a formal excuse why "table" in the last sentence is used without any article?

Bye, All!
Alexander Koryagin

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Re: No article
By: Alexander Koryagin to All on Mon Jul 28 2025 21:50:56

But before they sat down to table, the doctor said in a voice of

1) You don't start a sentence with words like "but" and "and".
2) It would be more appropriate to say, "But before they sat down to eat," or
just, "But before they sat down,", implying that they were sitting down to
dinner.
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Hi Mortar,

28.07.2025 18:26:10, Mortar M. wrote:

But before they sat down to table, the doctor said in a voice of

1) You don't start a sentence with words like "but" and "and".

But why shouldn't I? And could it be you made up this "rule" yourself
just now? :-)

2) It would be more appropriate to say, "But before they sat down
to eat," or just, "But before they sat down,", implying that
they were sitting down to dinner.

I can see an excuse to say "to sit down to table", the same way you
would say "I'm back in town" or "He's back from school". Although some
weird cases of not putting an article where it apparently should be do
happen, like in the following sentence (it's from a police report):

"...Robert Nastek was heading north on Olney Laytonsville
Road when he saw Kevin Costlow beating on the hood of car
occupied by Asian females".

Shouldn't it be "beating on the hood of -a- car"?


--
"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the
box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it."
-- Terry Pratchett
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Hello Gleb!

04 Aug 25 10:41, you wrote to All:

2) It would be more appropriate to say, "But before they sat
down to eat," or just, "But before they sat down,", implying
that they were sitting down to dinner.

Based on discussion with Grok: ;-)

Modern English is different from 19th-century English. In your example, the archaic phrase was retained as it was written by Jules Verne.

Karel

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Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from 30.08.2025 23:56

In the translation of Jules Verne's "The Voyages and Adventures of
Captain Hatteras" (project Gutenberg) there are these "table"
sentences:

----- Beginning of the citation -----
Hatteras unfolded on the table one of the excellent charts
published in 1859 by the order of the Admiralty.

..."Here is the chart of the Polar Seas," resumed the doctor, who
had brought it to the table;

... Johnson and Bell had a good supper awaiting them. But before
they sat down to table, the doctor said in a voice of triumph, as
he pointed to his two companions,

----- The end of the citation -----

Can you say a formal excuse why "table" in the last sentence is
used without any article?

My OXFORD CANADIAN DICTIONARY lists "at table" but not "to table".

THE FREE DICTIONARY tells me how to translate "at table " &
to "table" into Spanish, but offers no explanation of the sort you apparently want.

Indeed, after some thinking I feel that "sat down at table" sounds better. Probably most of books are translated into English by people who are not Englishmen. They convey the contents well, but sometimes use prepositions as at home. ;-)

Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2025

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Re: No article
By: Alexander Koryagin to Ardith Hinton on Wed Sep 03 2025 09:32:18

Indeed, after some thinking I feel that "sat down at table" sounds better.

"Sat down to eat/dinner/supper" sounds more natural to me. However, you could also say, "sat down to the table". This way, you don't sound like a caveman.
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Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from 30.08.2025 23:56

Probably most of books are translated into English by people who
are not Englishmen. They convey the contents well, but sometimes
use prepositions as at home. ;-)

Does the Gutenberg edition you're using provide any information
about who the translator was or about when & where s/he lived?

According to the Vancouver Public Library's summary of this book,
the captain was British & the edition they offer was published by
Oxford University Press. While I know nothing about the translator,
apart from his name, I trust the Oxford University Press to know
how the English language is (or was) spoken in their own country at
the time of publication. VPL users are also invited to share their perception of the library's offerings, and I see that in one review
of another novel by Jules Verne the writer spoke highly of a
Penguin edition in which the translator was named & made a point of
saying he much preferred it to an alternative in which the
translator was not named.

Many people nowadays try to dummify or modernize or sanitize
various classics in English, but when they do the original flavour
is often lost. :-))

It seems the translator was not important to mention him. ;-) Or I missed it? But the artist who made the pictures was clearly mentioned.

-----Beginning of the citation-----
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyages and Adventures of Captain
Hatteras, by Jules Verne

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras

Author: Jules Verne

Illustrator: Гdouard Riou

Release Date: July 15, 2009 [EBook #29413]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN HATTERAS ***

Produced by Ron Swanson (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries)

CAPTAIN HATTERAS.

[Illustration]

JULES VERNE.

[Frontispiece: "The brig was tossed about like a child's toy."--Page
134.]

THE VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HATTERAS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF JULES VERNE.

_WITH TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY RIOU_.

BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
1876.

COPYRIGHT, 1874.
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.

UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO., CAMBRIDGE.

CONTENTS.
----- The end of the citation -----

Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2025

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Hi, Dallas Hinton!
I read your message from 08.09.2025 15:55

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyages and Adventures
of Captain Hatteras, by Jules Verne

I might just add that I'm somewhat irritated that all the
translations (except for the 2005 which I haven't checked)
seem to be "condensed" in some form.

I remembered a USSR movie about the Civil war in Russia after the 1917 Revolution. It is not not connected to Verne directly, but however made me smile. A prison guard guards an arrested person and reads some book. The latter asks him, "Are you reading? "I am reading 'The Capital', by Karl Marx." "Wow, interesting?" "Yes, the cramp things I skip, but the proletarian gist I view." ;-)

Bye, Dallas!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2025

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Alexander Koryagin:

Johnson and Bell had a good supper awaiting them. But
before they sat down to table, the doctor said in a
voice of triumph, as he pointed to his two
companions,-- ----- The end of the citation -----

Can you say a formal excuse why "table" in the last sentence
is used without any article?

This usage needs no excuse, being perfectly correct. Here a
combination of a preposition and a noun in the objective case
acts as a unified proposition, cf. /on top of/, /in place of/,
&c. Observe also the title of a Dunany short story, /Thirteen
at table/, where /at table/ is singe united proposition.

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Mortar M.:

However, you could also say, "sat down to the table". This
way, you don't sound like a caveman.

But cavemen had no tables, being uncivilised. /to table/
occurs a lot in civilised English usage, e.g.:

https://duckduckgo.com/?origin=funnel_home_website&t=h_&q=%22to+table%22+site%3Agutenberg.org&ia=web

By /civilised/ I mean, of course, the use of English at a time
when only select few had a chance to preserve their writings,
unlike our modern barbaric age, when publishing one's text is no
longer a hard-earned privilege, so that any teenager generates
publicly readable noise at deafening levels.

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I wrote:

This usage needs no excuse, being perfectly correct. Here a
combination of a preposition and a noun in the objective
case acts as a unified proposition, cf. /on top of/, /in
place of/, &c. Observe also the title of a Dunany short
story, /Thirteen at table/, where /at table/ is singe united
prpposition.

^^^^^^^^^^^ -- preposition

Consider also: /jump ship/, /close shop/, /find fault (with)/,
/change color (of the face)/, &c. These are verbs merged with
following nouns in the objective case. The absence of an
article reflects this merging.

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Hi, Anton Shepelev!
I read your message from 18.10.2025 19:54

Johnson and Bell had a good supper awaiting them. But
before they sat down to table, the doctor said in a
voice of triumph, as he pointed to his two
companions,-- ----- The end of the citation -----

Can you say a formal excuse why "table" in the last sentence
is used without any article?

This usage needs no excuse, being perfectly correct. Here a
combination of a preposition and a noun in the objective case
acts as a unified proposition, cf. /on top of/, /in place of/,
??&c. Observe also the title of a Dunany short story,
/Thirteen at table/, where /at table/ is singe united
proposition.

Did you read somewhere about "unified prepositions" (URL please) or it is your idea?
Maybe it will be interesting for you what native speakers tell about the subj in other places.

https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/at-table-at-the-table.3982769/

Bye, Anton!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2025

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