Dtjytyk

If my throat is red and it feels painful to swallow, I say

I have a sore throat.

Recently, I've come across "strep throat". It's an infection and it doesn't seem to be used interchangeably with "sore throat". And I am wondering why.

I have a throat infection.

If it's a type of infection, why can't I say the following?

I have a strep throat.

I have a strep.

All the sentences I've found suggest leaving out the article.

I have strep throat.

I have strep.

Most likely, your doctor will prescribe an oral antibiotic if you have a strep infection.

If you have a strep infection, your health care provider will prescribe an antibiotic.

Could you demystify it for me?

1. The difference between "sore throat" and "strep throat".


2. Whether I should use an indefinite article before "strep throat".

There's little consistency in the articles we use (or don't use) with names of illnesses.

Ex:

I have a cold

I have the flu

I have diarrhea

Strep or strep throat is one of the many illnesses that do not get an article:

I have strep/strep throat

But this is only true when we're using strep as the name of a condition. It's also the name of a bacterium - actually, the name of the bacterium is streptococcus, but it's occasionally shortened to strep. When we're talking about the bacteria, as opposed to the illness caused by the bacteria, we use articles as per normal:

The streptococcus bacteria were hard to find.

A streptococcus bacterium can be oxidase-negative.

If you say "I have a sore throat," the a refers to your throat, so this is grammatically correct.

In various medical texts "sore throat" without a is used when it refers to sore throat as a condition. This is a matter of the usage of medical terms. Most conditions (pneumonia, ovarian cancer, ulcerative colitis, tendonitis) are without a, but there are several exceptions (a common cold, the flu, etc.).

Strep throat is an infection of the throat by the bacterium Streptococcus, so it is much more specific than sore throat.

If you say "I have a strep throat infection," the a refers to an infection, not a throat or sore throat.

But you usually say "I have strep throat," without a, because here you refer to a condition.

Symptoms are more commonly used without a; it's again a matter of usage (cough is more common than a cough).

The difference between "I have a sore throat" and "I have strep throat" lies in the predicate of the sentence.

When the word "Has/Had/Have" is used, we use an article for singular predicates, no article for plural predicates, and also no article for proper nouns or compound nouns (depending on use).

I have a movie. (Singular)

I have movies. (Plural)

I have a Godzilla movie. (Singular with Proper Noun used as an adjective)

I have Godzilla. (Proper Noun predicate, used in a conversation where the topic is known to be about movies)

When speaking about medical terms, this style is also used:

I have a sore foot.

I have Athlete's Foot.

"Strep throat" in particular is not normally capitalized from what I've seen, and so it is not as easily identified as a proper or compound noun.

One easy way to identify adjectives (and adverbs, prepositional phrases, clauses, etc.) is to eliminate it from the sentence and determine if the sentence still makes sense.

I have a sore throat. --> I have a throat.

This sentence can still be understood. "Sore" is an adjective.

I have strep throat. --> I have throat.

This sentence does not make sense.

Therefore, the word "strep" is not being used as an adjective in the sentence. Instead, it is being used as part of the compound noun "strep throat". Within that compound noun, "strep" is in fact used as an adjective of "throat", but the entire compound noun of "strep throat" is the target of "have".

"I have strep" is a sentence where "strep" is used as a commonly-understood abbreviation of "strep throat".

You can have a sore throat because of a number of different causes; a streptococcus ("strep") infection is just one of them. A strep throat is a sore throat but not always the reverse.