From: le@lekno.ws   
      
   Steve Hayes  wrote:   
   > On Sat, 25 Jan 2025 20:23:32 +0000, bryan_styble   
   >  wrote:   
   >   
   >>Several points, Louis:   
   >>   
   >>Congrats...as you convinced me on this "to-The-or-not-to-The" issue!   
   >>I.e., it indeed sounds erroneous (not to mention pompous), even when   
   >>that lacking-The usage IS correct.  (So yeah, I guess I'll start saying   
   >>The Village People and The Titanic, although it may take months to shed   
   >>that since-childhood verbal habit.)   
   >>   
   >>Meanwhile, what's the deal with that handful of independent states   
   >>around the planet where convention dictates a The?  I'm thinking of The   
   >>Sudan and The Ukraine (once upon a time), and The Netherlands even   
   >>today.  And speaking of Holland, why does everyone say The Hague?   
   >>(Because it's a mere CITY for Heaven's sake!)   
   >>   
   >>So, who was the guy who all of a sudden decided and decreed it was no   
   >>longer proper to say "The Ukraine"?   
   >>TV-comic-turned-Freedom-Fighter-Head-of-State Zelinskyy, or just some   
   >>nameless bureaucrat?   
   >>   
   >>Louis, do you in your ever-erudite ways have any insight to offer us all   
   >>as to what precisely which factors govern this inclusion of the   
   >>(superfluous) The, or lack thereof?   
   >   
   > One of the criteria for inclusion or omission of "the" seems to be   
   > when a noun becomes a name (a proper noun), specific instead of   
   > general.   
   >   
   > Some other examples:   
   >   
   > The Transkei and the Ciskei, and the Transvaal.   
   >   
   > People living to the west of the Kei river called the land on the   
   > eastern side of the river "the Transkei" and the land on their side of   
   > the river becamew "the Ciskei". It wasn't a definite area of land. No   
   > one knew or cared how far the Transkei streched beyond the river. Some   
   > might think of it as being only to the next river, while others might   
   > think of it as stretching further. When, however it becomes a legal   
   > entity, which had laws applying to it and not to other places, then   
   > there is a need to define boundaries more carefully and it became   
   > known as "Transkei" without the definite article.   
   >   
   > The same applied to "the Transvaal" -- at first it was applied to the   
   > area north of the Vaal River by people who approached it from the   
   > south, Then at various periods it became a legal entity, most notably   
   > when from 1902-1910 it was a British Colony and from 1910-1994 a South   
   > African Province. Now it's simply a vague area again, but with more   
   > populous and important cities being to the north of the river rather   
   > than to the south of it, the term has dropped out of use.   
      
   For some time starting in the 1970s Transkei and Ciskei were   
   native states declared independent by South Africa but largely   
   not recognized as such internationally...but the boundaries of   
   these entities only covered such parts of the territory on the   
   respective sides of the Kei that the white regime chose to   
   allot to the natives,and not the entire lands the geographic   
   description would indicate.   
      
   > Nowadays "trans" and "cis" are mainly applied to the river sex. Those   
   > whose sex and gender are on the same side of the river are "cis" and   
   > those whose sex is on one side of the river and whose gender is on the   
   > other side are "trans".   
      
   Originally of course the term was used in the days of the   
   Roman Republic,whose authority Julius Caesar extended into   
   Transalpine Gaul (France) after it had already been established   
   in Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy).   
      
   > Another example is the place known to people who didn't live there as   
   > "the Ivory Coast" -- so named by people who didn't live there because   
   > at the time it was their principal export. No one cared how far inland   
   > it stretched until it became a legal entity, with laws applying to it   
   > and nowhere else. Now it prefers to be known as Côte d'Ivoire.   
      
   I am rather annoyed by the affectations made in recent years by   
   Ivory Coast,Cape Verde,East Timor,Burma,and now even Turkey that   
   their names are to be rendered in their native language only   
   rather than translated into the languages spoken by others...   
   it is an established convention of English to use English names   
   and one should not presume to regulate languages other than   
   one's own.   
      
   -=-=-   
   The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,   
   at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)