The?

[Vladimir]

What i want to know, is why there is this useless word in teh English language, ie; The.

[Sayonara]

It's quite useful actually. It allows for impersonal and indefinite referencing.

[Vladimir]

Such as what? You have no idea how much or how long this has bothered

[Sayonara]

As an example, putting "the" before a noun indicates that a particular instance of that noun is being referred to, rather than any or all instances of that noun.

[Vladimir]

COme on give me an example, otherwise i shall continue to bleieve that the word the, is a small and foolish word.

[Sayonara]

Clearly it is a small word. Whether or not it is "foolish" depends on how it is used, as is the case with any word you care to choose.

 

Having said that, thinking up a good example that shows the value of this word turns out to be quite tricky.

[Vladimir]

all i can see is that it is used out of habit by the English speaking people

[klanger]

my interpretation of "The" is that it gives the following word more importance in the sentence, hmmmm such as in a question about a famous person, its not uncommon for the questioner to say "The Brad Pitt?" meaning that this person is maybe of more importance than any other person named Brad Pitt. But yes "the" English use it possibly more often then other english speaking people

[Pangloss]

Yeah, it's, like, THE way to accomplish that.

[Dak]

lots of things in the english language could actually be done away with:

 

the word the: there arent that many instances where it cant just be dropped, and where it cant be dropped it can always be substituted (eg, "what, famouse brad pitt?" as opposed to "what, the brad pit?"). it sounds strange, but "want to go to pub?" or "wheres cat?" or "sayo's one of administrators for site" all are easaly decypherable and if it wasnt for fact that word 'the' exists, no-one would miss it

 

the letter c WHAT THE **** IS IT FOR!?!?!?!?! theres no instance where it isnt interchangable with K or S, so why not just ditch it and use either k or s. call me a heathen, but why not kream, kake, sirkus and khips (yeah, i now kh isnt pronounsed 'ch' but then neither is 'ch').

 

plurals no-one gets confused about sheep. this is because you can always tell whether theres one or more sheep, even without the s. "look, theres a sheep" is obviously refering to one sheep, whereas "look, theres some sheep" is obviously refering to more than one. if your going to modify the article preceding the noun to indicate either 1 or not1, then also modifying the noun itself to indicate the same thing is redundant.

 

capitals why? why complicate an alphabet by having 2 ways of spelling each letter? fish and FISH are both pronounced the same, they both mean the same, the full stop already indicates the transition from one sentance to another, and theres not really any valid reason to capitalise the initial letter of a proper noun, england and dak are both perfectly understandable -- theres no need for England and Dak.

 

i could go on...

[Cadmus]

What i want to know, is why there is this useless word in teh English language, ie; The.

Your suggestion that language contains useless words of any sort is not well thought our.

 

The word the is useful. It does not appear in all langauges, such as Russian.

 

The word the indicates to the reader/listener that he is familar with the noun in question. For example, give me an apple and give me the apple. Give me an apple is non-specific, and the listener can expect that the speaker does not necessarily have a specific one in mind. Give me the apple makes it clear that a specific apple is desired, and the listener is expected to know which one it is.

 

Such a concept is obviously not useless. It is not mandatory in language, and many langauges do not use definite articles. Indo-European languages do, however.

[Flareon]

capitals why? why complicate an alphabet by having 2 ways of spelling each letter? fish and FISH are both pronounced the same' date=' they both mean the same, the full stop already indicates the transition from one sentance to another, and theres not really any valid reason to capitalise the initial letter of a proper noun, england and dak are both perfectly understandable -- theres no need for England and Dak.[/quote']

 

Hey, I like Capitals. I wouldn't like to leave the mighty task of sentence division solely on the measley period. I mean, what if you were writing on speckled paper? It would get all confusing.

[Vladimir]

I didnt mean it in the sense of The Vladimir Batov i meant it as in lets go to the park the street the ball, i can see some significance in it being used to single out a particular person/noun but it just simply seems to be pointless.

Yes i am well aware that Russians do not have a the

[Pangloss]

Which I presume is why you hear a lot of Russians leave it out, and end up talking about "going to park", leaving you wondering whether they mean the same park you were talking about five minutes ago, or some other park.

 

How would you know the difference in Russian? I assume they have some way of making that information known to the listener....

[Phi for All]

If someone told me they were "going to park", I might assume they meant "going to park my car somewhere". In this case, the distinguishes between a noun and a verb to the listener. If they said "going to the park", it would change the meaning completely, and would imply either the closest park or one we had frequented previously.

 

It is a small word, but makes English a bit easier.

[Vladimir]

Dont get me started on the English language.

[Bettina]

Dont get me started on the English language.

 

You just used a word you wanted to get rid of..... I see you still find it useful

 

Bettina

[Vladimir]

Would you prefer me to use incorrect English? This language is flawed and a crazy concoction of meaningless phrases!

I have no use for the. If teh was to be stricken from the world i would be a happy man. However, if it pleases you, i shall never use it again.

[Bettina]

Would you prefer me to use incorrect English? This language is flawed and a crazy concoction of meaningless phrases!

I have no use for the. If teh was to be stricken from the world i would be a happy man. However' date=' if it pleases you, i shall never use it again.[/quote']

 

I'm going to test you....I'll be watching your every word now..

 

Bettina

[Vladimir]

I thought that you might.

[Pangloss]

Reminds me of an old Steve Martin routine.

 

"Yeah, gonna get me some hostages. And when they find me, I'm going to have three demands:

1) One million dollars.

2) A getaway car.

3) I want the letter "M" stricken from the English language.

See, you have to have at least one crazy demand so that if you're caught you can plead insanity.

<evil chuckle> getaway car...."

[Vladimir]

If you think im going to stand over a globe stroking a cat and laughing manically your sorely mistaken. I dont like cats.

[YT2095]

Vladimir, i may say to you "END!"

 

or perhaps I`ll say JUMP!

 

these two are like commands (verbs), howevr, if I change them with "The End" or "The Jump" the verb is no long a Command, but a Thing or Statement

 

it acts as a contextual qualifier.

[luc]

Would you prefer me to use incorrect English? This language is flawed and a crazy concoction of meaningless phrases!

I have no use for the. If teh was to be stricken from the world i would be a happy man. However' date=' if it pleases you, i shall never use it again.[/quote']

 

I second that. I won't use the word The anymore

 

Down with the word The!!!!

[Douglas]

What i want to know, is why there is this useless word in teh English language, ie; The.

TEH, is not used in American english.

At first, I thought it was a case of unusually high dyslexia, then realised it was "slang".

 

I also noticed a high incidence of what I refer to as a "negative" as in...."is it not true"... instead of ... "is it true". I then noticed that question marks are used in statements like ...... I supposed you're American???