Unnecessary “The”?
June 7, 2021 6:24 AM Subscribe
There is a linguistic phenomenon where people add the word “the” in front of words where it is unnecessary. Examples “the Google”, “the Facebook”, not exclusively proper nouns. I can’t find an explanation on the Google because “the” is too common.
I used to associate this with people who were older. And I used to use a joking way. Now a bit older myself, I find myself doing it and cringing when I catch myself. I just was speaking to someone the other day about being diagnosed with arthritis. And I referred to it “having the arthritis.” As opposed to “having arthritis”. It appears to be a superfluous “the”, but fuck me I can’t figure out what grammar rule or style is being violated, or why. Would love to know what this on a more technical and grammatical level, if my observation based on age is correct, and why?! Hope me, the mefi!
I used to associate this with people who were older. And I used to use a joking way. Now a bit older myself, I find myself doing it and cringing when I catch myself. I just was speaking to someone the other day about being diagnosed with arthritis. And I referred to it “having the arthritis.” As opposed to “having arthritis”. It appears to be a superfluous “the”, but fuck me I can’t figure out what grammar rule or style is being violated, or why. Would love to know what this on a more technical and grammatical level, if my observation based on age is correct, and why?! Hope me, the mefi!
I'm not a linguist at all, but it looks like this kind of "the" is called a "definite determiner" and here's a post explaining more, and speculating that it's a British/American English thing. I'm not sure whether all their examples really fit with what you're thinking, but they do include "the menopause," and in the comments someone mentions "the AIDS".
posted by unknowncommand at 6:42 AM on June 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by unknowncommand at 6:42 AM on June 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
I associate overuse of definite articles (the) with Hiberno-English as mentioned in this Irish Times article, particularly your "having the arthritis" example.
posted by scorbet at 6:43 AM on June 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by scorbet at 6:43 AM on June 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
Also, here's an in-depth Stack Exchange answer about using "the" with diseases that cites the OED. I have no idea why diseases would get conflated with technologies, linguistically :)
posted by unknowncommand at 6:51 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by unknowncommand at 6:51 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
scorbet has it. It's also come to be used as a form of self-deprecating humor to indicate that the speaker is not au courant with something (e.g., "As you know, I am quite a fan of the hip hop music...").
posted by slkinsey at 6:52 AM on June 7, 2021 [18 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 6:52 AM on June 7, 2021 [18 favorites]
Thew one that gets me: How Los Angeles got in the habit of putting ‘the’ in front of every freeway name
posted by achrise at 6:52 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by achrise at 6:52 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
The Wikipedia pages for Article and Proper and common nouns come close to discussing this (e.g. "The Ukraine" vs "Ukraine"), but don't mention this specific phenomenon.
I don't think it's grammatically incorrect, but it is violating an established convention for which proper nouns (and other nouns) get an article and which do not. In the case of disease names, adding the the seems to be a dialect, something I would also associate with old people. My best guess for where this kind of usage came from is people adopting a new unfamiliar term without the associated context of how it is used in a sentence -- but I'm not a linguist and that's a thumb-suck. I do think that this interpretation explains the ironic usage of "the Facebook", "the Google", etc. -- it's mimicry of a tech-unsavvy person using an unfamiliar term for comic effect.
I've noticed something similar in the way that the word "code" is used in scientific papers in different disciplines. In software development, "code" is a collective noun. But papers in other fields of science talk about "a code" or multiple "codes", which is hilarious to read as a developer. I'm sure there are other examples of relatively new words which have evolved parallel usages in different fields.
posted by confluency at 6:53 AM on June 7, 2021
I don't think it's grammatically incorrect, but it is violating an established convention for which proper nouns (and other nouns) get an article and which do not. In the case of disease names, adding the the seems to be a dialect, something I would also associate with old people. My best guess for where this kind of usage came from is people adopting a new unfamiliar term without the associated context of how it is used in a sentence -- but I'm not a linguist and that's a thumb-suck. I do think that this interpretation explains the ironic usage of "the Facebook", "the Google", etc. -- it's mimicry of a tech-unsavvy person using an unfamiliar term for comic effect.
I've noticed something similar in the way that the word "code" is used in scientific papers in different disciplines. In software development, "code" is a collective noun. But papers in other fields of science talk about "a code" or multiple "codes", which is hilarious to read as a developer. I'm sure there are other examples of relatively new words which have evolved parallel usages in different fields.
posted by confluency at 6:53 AM on June 7, 2021
Like slkinsey says, "The Google" and "The Facebook" are said humorously. These people will also refer the the internet as "the interwebs". So, all the grammatical dissection in these answers is interesting, but overthinking what is ultimately just a joke.
posted by jonathanhughes at 7:03 AM on June 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by jonathanhughes at 7:03 AM on June 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
As a foreign language enthusiast, I've always assumed it had something to do with foreign languages. I'm only familiar with Romance and Germanic languages, but they have grammatical genders, and the article is usually what indicates the gender. So when you look up word "calendar" in a French-English dictionary, it'll be "le calendrier", to indicate that it's masculine. This is true of proper nouns, too, so "France" is "la France", or "Ukraine" is "l'Ukraine". Likewise in German, "calender" is "der Kalender", "Ukraine" is "die Ukraine". Hence, I've always seen it as a "do the needful" kind of translation error, either by a novice speaker or by a computer, and that's why, like "do the needful", it seems to be kind of jokey in usage.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:28 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 7:28 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I used to associate this with people who were older.
This is kind of funny. I'm old, and I associate it with younger people making fun of older people. I can't remember hearing it used in a serious way by anyone of any age. I'm "young old" though (62). Maybe it's different for people in their 80s and 90s.
Also, I may be wrong about this - I haven't exactly studied it but I'm a medical copy editor, so I've noticed it : it seems in British English, people say "in hospital," whereas Americans say "in the hospital." I can't think of any other phrase that works like this though.
posted by FencingGal at 7:28 AM on June 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
This is kind of funny. I'm old, and I associate it with younger people making fun of older people. I can't remember hearing it used in a serious way by anyone of any age. I'm "young old" though (62). Maybe it's different for people in their 80s and 90s.
Also, I may be wrong about this - I haven't exactly studied it but I'm a medical copy editor, so I've noticed it : it seems in British English, people say "in hospital," whereas Americans say "in the hospital." I can't think of any other phrase that works like this though.
posted by FencingGal at 7:28 AM on June 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
I always thought this was an Erie PA thing. As a kid we always went shopping at "the K-Mart."
Now that I live in Pittsburgh I still do that, adding (ironically, I think) an apostrophe-s: "Need anything? I'm goin' dahn the Target's."
posted by booth at 7:31 AM on June 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
Now that I live in Pittsburgh I still do that, adding (ironically, I think) an apostrophe-s: "Need anything? I'm goin' dahn the Target's."
posted by booth at 7:31 AM on June 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
@kevinbelt: "Do the needful" is standard in Indian English. It may be used in a jokey fashion by some British and American English speakers who are familiar with the usage.
Most Slavic languages, including Ukrainian, lack articles, so there's no native distinction between "Ukraine" and "the Ukraine." As I recall, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian government insisted on using "Ukraine" as the country's official name because "the Ukraine" makes it sound like a region, not an independent state.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:34 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Most Slavic languages, including Ukrainian, lack articles, so there's no native distinction between "Ukraine" and "the Ukraine." As I recall, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian government insisted on using "Ukraine" as the country's official name because "the Ukraine" makes it sound like a region, not an independent state.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:34 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
in British English, people say "in hospital," whereas Americans say "in the hospital." I can't think of any other phrase that works like this though.
there's "in future" vs "in the future"
I'm a little curious if the use of the definite article with big amorphous web platforms parallels the use of "the Internet" (I remember some people back in the day trying very hard to make "Internet" happen, as in "we're going to learn how to use Internet"). I also wonder if it's related to the use of the definite article with certain product names or categories, like "the iPhone" or even "the phone".
what grammar rule or style is being violated
there's prescriptive grammar, which prescribes how some people feel a language should be (e.g. "never end a sentence with a preposition"), and there's descriptive grammar, which describes the language that is actually in use ("English prepositions often appear at the end of a sentence in [the following structures]; this usage may be considered slightly informal but is more prevalent than the alternative"). There are "rules" no English speaker would break (you'd never say "There rules are nobody break would"), and there are "rules" that describe only some dialects, or someone's pet peeves. That's part of why there are endless different style guides; the NYT has a different set of internal rules than the New Yorker or the London Times. All of which is to say it can be more useful to look at this through the lens of sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, discourse analysis, and so on (as you're doing here) than through a prescriptive lens; pinning down some non-contradictory rule is hard and, in this case, probably impossible, but looking at who says this and how different audiences react to it is interesting.
she was talking about "the clay". I was wondering, if that's professional expression for this surface.
professionals don't know the Green, the Blue, or the clay exist
posted by trig at 8:03 AM on June 7, 2021
there's "in future" vs "in the future"
I'm a little curious if the use of the definite article with big amorphous web platforms parallels the use of "the Internet" (I remember some people back in the day trying very hard to make "Internet" happen, as in "we're going to learn how to use Internet"). I also wonder if it's related to the use of the definite article with certain product names or categories, like "the iPhone" or even "the phone".
what grammar rule or style is being violated
there's prescriptive grammar, which prescribes how some people feel a language should be (e.g. "never end a sentence with a preposition"), and there's descriptive grammar, which describes the language that is actually in use ("English prepositions often appear at the end of a sentence in [the following structures]; this usage may be considered slightly informal but is more prevalent than the alternative"). There are "rules" no English speaker would break (you'd never say "There rules are nobody break would"), and there are "rules" that describe only some dialects, or someone's pet peeves. That's part of why there are endless different style guides; the NYT has a different set of internal rules than the New Yorker or the London Times. All of which is to say it can be more useful to look at this through the lens of sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, discourse analysis, and so on (as you're doing here) than through a prescriptive lens; pinning down some non-contradictory rule is hard and, in this case, probably impossible, but looking at who says this and how different audiences react to it is interesting.
she was talking about "the clay". I was wondering, if that's professional expression for this surface.
professionals don't know the Green, the Blue, or the clay exist
posted by trig at 8:03 AM on June 7, 2021
Learning Spanish here. This sounds like literal translation from Spanish. In English you'd say "I like basketball." In Spanish you'd say "Me gusta el baloncesto" or "I like the basketball."
posted by hypnogogue at 9:27 AM on June 7, 2021
posted by hypnogogue at 9:27 AM on June 7, 2021
Note that the names of some late 1960s rock bands like Pink Floyd used ambiguity about whether "The" Article was required or not for a vaguely something effect. Rock bands listed on playbills would have "The" inserted or removed randomly in front of their names, sometimes to their annoyance, sometimes to their amusement.
posted by ovvl at 9:28 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by ovvl at 9:28 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
trig, I'd argue that "having the arthritis" is mildly ungrammatical--in the descriptive sense--in [insert clever name here]'s dialect and their listener's. Since they're aware of that, what they're actually doing is flouting a Gricean maxim for humor/irony. It's been long enough since I took a linguistics class that I can't pinpoint which one this is, though. Maybe Manner because they're making their language unclear and more difficult to understand on purpose?
posted by capricorn at 9:30 AM on June 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by capricorn at 9:30 AM on June 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
I wonder if it's a sort of 'generic' vs. 'brand' naming. For example, I might need to go to "the" grocery store, but I also need to go to Safeway (no "the" needed). I need to visit the bank, but can we stop at Bank of America.
It's really interesting (and very confusing) when/where we use "the" and when we don't. As for Brits or Canadians, I've noticed they don't use "the" in front of hospital (mentioned above) nor university.
posted by hydra77 at 9:43 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's really interesting (and very confusing) when/where we use "the" and when we don't. As for Brits or Canadians, I've noticed they don't use "the" in front of hospital (mentioned above) nor university.
posted by hydra77 at 9:43 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Whenever I have a slight twinge, I gloomily attribute it to "The Cancer." (I do not have cancer, but I am a little hypochondriac.) Referring to something with the article as if it were an already-distinguished example of the general type (a "determinative" usage) when in fact no such example actually exists can be funny (it implies an established conviction that it does, against all reality).
posted by praemunire at 10:12 AM on June 7, 2021
posted by praemunire at 10:12 AM on June 7, 2021
Adding another age-note, I (44) don't use this construction to be funny, though I understand it, but my 25yr old son most definitely does, along with some of his friends, and have since the early teen years. His slightly younger sibs do it very rarely in comparison, which I always thought was odd. I never did figure out WHY there was such a difference.
Also, just to be obnoxious - and since someone mentioned the LA freeways, I'll mention this: there's a town in Oregon called The Dalles. "Dalles" is one syllable, so don't pronounce it with two or people will assume you meant Dallas Oregon or Texas.
posted by stormyteal at 11:18 AM on June 7, 2021
Also, just to be obnoxious - and since someone mentioned the LA freeways, I'll mention this: there's a town in Oregon called The Dalles. "Dalles" is one syllable, so don't pronounce it with two or people will assume you meant Dallas Oregon or Texas.
posted by stormyteal at 11:18 AM on June 7, 2021
@whitewall brings it.
It's something more complicated than uniqueness, it turns out. We say "the Mississippi River" but "Lake Pontchartrain" and this is for some reason a general tendency for lake and river names. (From a Language Log post, which uses the other terms you can search for this under, arthrous and anarthrous proper nouns.)
posted by away for regrooving at 11:31 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's something more complicated than uniqueness, it turns out. We say "the Mississippi River" but "Lake Pontchartrain" and this is for some reason a general tendency for lake and river names. (From a Language Log post, which uses the other terms you can search for this under, arthrous and anarthrous proper nouns.)
posted by away for regrooving at 11:31 AM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
So many answers in and no one has given a proper linguistic explanation for this! At least for (the) Facebook and (the) Google, we are talking about the difference between strong and weak proper nouns.
This triggered something for me. At least with Google, many people are using it as a verb "Google it", and therefore by putting "the" in front of it, it signifies it as a noun. Not so sure that Facebook is used as a verb, but maybe?
posted by itsflyable at 1:01 PM on June 7, 2021
This triggered something for me. At least with Google, many people are using it as a verb "Google it", and therefore by putting "the" in front of it, it signifies it as a noun. Not so sure that Facebook is used as a verb, but maybe?
posted by itsflyable at 1:01 PM on June 7, 2021
Note that the names of some late 1960s rock bands like Pink Floyd used ambiguity about whether "The" Article was required or not for a vaguely something effect. Rock bands listed on playbills would have "The" inserted or removed randomly in front of their names, sometimes to their annoyance, sometimes to their amusement.
It’s always been a huge pet peeve of mine when people leave the “the” off titles that begin with “the!”
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:02 PM on June 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
It’s always been a huge pet peeve of mine when people leave the “the” off titles that begin with “the!”
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:02 PM on June 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
There are so many aspects to this question!
As away for regrooving points out, there's a certain arbitrariness to which proper nouns are weak. This sometimes creates space for shibboleths to emerge. The example of freeways has been brought up (Southern Californians are more likely to use "the" than Northern Californians); likewise, use of "the" with certain neighborhood names tends to make me think (justly or unjustly) that someone might be a relative newcomer or, like, a realtor. I've heard that CIA personnel refer to their outfit as "CIA", never "the CIA".
The arbitrariness also means that for every wrong usage, there is almost always an analogous usage of some other phrase that is perfectly correct. ("The Wikipedia" is wrong, but "the Britannica" was fine. "The arthritis" is weird, but "the grippe" or "the heebie-jeebies" is normal, and I don't know how to feel about "Ol Yeller's got the hydrophobe.") I think that's why it's unclear what rule is being broken. It's not that different from getting the gender of a noun wrong (in a language where that's a thing); the violation, whether humorous or just an error, is on the level of the specific word.
posted by aws17576 at 2:06 PM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
As away for regrooving points out, there's a certain arbitrariness to which proper nouns are weak. This sometimes creates space for shibboleths to emerge. The example of freeways has been brought up (Southern Californians are more likely to use "the" than Northern Californians); likewise, use of "the" with certain neighborhood names tends to make me think (justly or unjustly) that someone might be a relative newcomer or, like, a realtor. I've heard that CIA personnel refer to their outfit as "CIA", never "the CIA".
The arbitrariness also means that for every wrong usage, there is almost always an analogous usage of some other phrase that is perfectly correct. ("The Wikipedia" is wrong, but "the Britannica" was fine. "The arthritis" is weird, but "the grippe" or "the heebie-jeebies" is normal, and I don't know how to feel about "Ol Yeller's got the hydrophobe.") I think that's why it's unclear what rule is being broken. It's not that different from getting the gender of a noun wrong (in a language where that's a thing); the violation, whether humorous or just an error, is on the level of the specific word.
posted by aws17576 at 2:06 PM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I always thought people said "the Google" in mockery of George W. Bush. If they said "the Facebook", I would have thought it was just riffing on the same joke. I might have been inaccurate in thinking this.
there's a certain arbitrariness to which proper nouns are weak. This sometimes creates space for shibboleths to emerge
I think you've answered the question about what grammatical rule is broken. It's the shibboleth rule. There's no really good reason why we say "I have influenza" or "I have the flu", but we don't say "I have flu" or "I have the influenza". If your experience is that people are supposed to say "she has diabetes", then someone who says "she has the diabetes" sounds like a rube or a fuddy-duddy. It's a shibboleth.
posted by polecat at 2:21 PM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
there's a certain arbitrariness to which proper nouns are weak. This sometimes creates space for shibboleths to emerge
I think you've answered the question about what grammatical rule is broken. It's the shibboleth rule. There's no really good reason why we say "I have influenza" or "I have the flu", but we don't say "I have flu" or "I have the influenza". If your experience is that people are supposed to say "she has diabetes", then someone who says "she has the diabetes" sounds like a rube or a fuddy-duddy. It's a shibboleth.
posted by polecat at 2:21 PM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
This is common dialect where I live, especially where it comes to diseases. The construction changes depending on the first letter of the disease in question. Hard consonants get a 'the' and soft consonants/vowels get a 'that'. So right now I've got the covid, and I've had that arthritis for years. Lots of folks have the diabetes, or that hepatitis.
That said, I often hear 'the Google' used for humorous effect, especially by the under-fifty crowd.
posted by Vigilant at 2:34 PM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
That said, I often hear 'the Google' used for humorous effect, especially by the under-fifty crowd.
posted by Vigilant at 2:34 PM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I will add more anecdota that for us, it's mostly when we're trying to be funny or trying to be ironic, especially as aws17576 and polecat have pointed out with diseases. It's always The Betes, The Rona, etc.
Referring to highways as "the" dropped out of my vocabulary as soon as I moved back east of the Mississippi.
posted by joycehealy at 5:18 PM on June 7, 2021
Referring to highways as "the" dropped out of my vocabulary as soon as I moved back east of the Mississippi.
posted by joycehealy at 5:18 PM on June 7, 2021
When I was growing up in rural WNY, everybody put “the” before all road names.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:45 PM on June 7, 2021
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:45 PM on June 7, 2021
I also think it's a matter of general vs. specific, and the implied humor is pointing to a lack of familiarity with something that was once specific but has become general.
In English, we use "the" to refer to a specific object or instance: 'the budget', 'the cartoon'. We might have once said "'I'm watching THE TV", but most people now say "I'm watching TV" because it's become a more general/ubiquitous concept. It became a noncount noun. We don't go outside to look at "the nature", just nature.
Similarly, we once said "I'm looking at the facebook" when it was a new and small-seeming platform, but now it's universal. And the humor I think comes the divide of whether you see it a small box or a general experience.
posted by nakedmolerats at 5:54 PM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
In English, we use "the" to refer to a specific object or instance: 'the budget', 'the cartoon'. We might have once said "'I'm watching THE TV", but most people now say "I'm watching TV" because it's become a more general/ubiquitous concept. It became a noncount noun. We don't go outside to look at "the nature", just nature.
Similarly, we once said "I'm looking at the facebook" when it was a new and small-seeming platform, but now it's universal. And the humor I think comes the divide of whether you see it a small box or a general experience.
posted by nakedmolerats at 5:54 PM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
Note that the names of some late 1960s rock bands like Pink Floyd used ambiguity about whether "The" Article was required or not for a vaguely something effect. Rock bands listed on playbills would have "The" inserted or removed randomly in front of their names, sometimes to their annoyance, sometimes to their amusement.
It’s always been a huge pet peeve of mine when people leave the “the” off titles that begin with “the!”
Oh it gets even more annoying. House style at many alt-weekly publications was, at the time I edited for them, to always lowercase "the" at the beginning of a band name, even if the band itself capitalized it. I hate prescriptive stuff like that. Just capitalize and punctuate it the way the band does. Look it up if you don't know. Why is that leap so hard for publications to make? Unfortunately, because in many cases, their style guides were established at a time when Google and band websites and digital press kits didn't exist. Failure to adapt to that reality isn't a valid stylistic flourish, agh.
posted by limeonaire at 6:38 PM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
It’s always been a huge pet peeve of mine when people leave the “the” off titles that begin with “the!”
Oh it gets even more annoying. House style at many alt-weekly publications was, at the time I edited for them, to always lowercase "the" at the beginning of a band name, even if the band itself capitalized it. I hate prescriptive stuff like that. Just capitalize and punctuate it the way the band does. Look it up if you don't know. Why is that leap so hard for publications to make? Unfortunately, because in many cases, their style guides were established at a time when Google and band websites and digital press kits didn't exist. Failure to adapt to that reality isn't a valid stylistic flourish, agh.
posted by limeonaire at 6:38 PM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think nakedmolerats has it - I feel like I’ve heard my grandma say things like “I’ve just been watching the television all day”. That context is consistent with the jokey usage, in my experience: young people say “the Google” in part to emulate a person who isn’t tech-savvy. And I feel like it’s expanded to not just be about familiarity but to imply a distance between you and the thing you’re talking about, like “I have the feels” is less sentimental than “I’m sad”.
(FWIW I’m a linguist, but this isn’t my area, so I’m just speculating!)
posted by chaiyai at 6:50 PM on June 7, 2021
(FWIW I’m a linguist, but this isn’t my area, so I’m just speculating!)
posted by chaiyai at 6:50 PM on June 7, 2021
When I've heard people say "the mask" and "the Covid", I've sensed that maybe they are using "the" to somehow be dismissive of masks and the virus. I don't know what that linguistic construct would be called, and it's definitely subtle and probably not something most people would notice, but to me it feels like a way of giving the noun a more narrow scope in order to paint it as something small and not so important. (Perhaps similar to how someone might say "the wife" but not exactly the same.) If someone says "Covid", that can have boundless scope, but if they say "the Covid", it feels like they are trying to limit its breadth and thereby minimize it.
posted by Dansaman at 9:18 PM on June 7, 2021
posted by Dansaman at 9:18 PM on June 7, 2021
In the case of Facebook I believe it - it was originally called "The Facebook" by none other then Zuckerberg, back in 2004. It did not become just "Facebook" until the following year when that domain name was purchased. So there is some old-school legitimacy in using the old name, IMHO.
posted by rongorongo at 4:48 AM on June 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by rongorongo at 4:48 AM on June 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I just got this sentence in a tweet:
Some news: National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says he came into today's briefing from the Oval, where Biden is currently speaking with Ukrainian President Zelensky by phone.
posted by SemiSalt at 7:09 AM on June 8, 2021
Some news: National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says he came into today's briefing from the Oval, where Biden is currently speaking with Ukrainian President Zelensky by phone.
posted by SemiSalt at 7:09 AM on June 8, 2021
Referring to highways as "the" dropped out of my vocabulary as soon as I moved back east of the Mississippi.
I've always found that to be completely random, even though Californians get a lot of grief for it.
The Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago is proper usage. The Van Wyck Expressway in NYC (Seinfeld reference :) ) The George Bush Tollway in Texas. These are all pretty common. Even "The Bronx" (place in NYC) is not 100% decided, as the mailing address is just "Bronx NY".
Sure, southern Californians add the "the" more often and for more roads, but it's pretty common around the entire US.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:11 AM on June 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I've always found that to be completely random, even though Californians get a lot of grief for it.
The Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago is proper usage. The Van Wyck Expressway in NYC (Seinfeld reference :) ) The George Bush Tollway in Texas. These are all pretty common. Even "The Bronx" (place in NYC) is not 100% decided, as the mailing address is just "Bronx NY".
Sure, southern Californians add the "the" more often and for more roads, but it's pretty common around the entire US.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:11 AM on June 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
The stereotype of Southern Californians always using the definite article to refer to freeways/highways is only really odd when used for the numbered ones. I will agree that "the van wyck" and "the dan ryan" and "the pacific coast highway" all sound fine enough to my ear, but "the 101" and "the 5" was just not how we did things in the Bay Area.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:59 AM on June 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:59 AM on June 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
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