"Lucie has fever" doesn't make sense in English, should be "Lucie has A fever"

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Accepted Answer

Hi James, 
Thank you for pointing this little error which has now been corrected.
Bonne Continuation!

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It wasn't really an error Cécile - there is variable regional usage, and this debate fills many forum pages elsewhere.

I can tell you many a medical ward round will have included the words "(patient) has fever".

(My preference is to include 'a' in most cases but it depends on context, and in the flow of an informal discussion, leaving 'a' out is not unheard of, at least in some parts of the English-speaking world.)

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Hi Maarten, 
Personally I have never heard anyone say -
I have fever
but someone has a fever or a temperature 
and I have lived most of my adult life in the UK (and in different geographical regions), but I did wonder whether that was an americanism...
I used to say things like -
I have a bronchitis, a tonsillitis etc
when I first arrived here which is a direct translation from the French which was swiftly corrected by local people -
J'ai une bronchite, j'ai une angine, il a une pneumonie , elle a un cancer etc.
Interesting differences!

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Americanism - I wouldn’t know. Not my preferred expression but definitely used. Certainly doesn’t lead to an expression that can’t be understood. As a retired medico, I have heard it many times.

Regional differences, descriptive versus prescriptive grammar. Except English doesn’t have an Académie to even “attempt” to define the prescriptive grammar !