LINGUIST List 3.918

Sat 21 Nov 1992

Disc: Articles and Names

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames
2. , articles in place names
3. Ron Smyth, Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames
4. Jeff Runner, "The" City
5. John E. Koontz, Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames
6. Lynda M. Milne, Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames
7. , Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames
8. ALICE FABER, THE City
9. Paul Saka, RE 3.914 Placenames
10. Ian MacKay, Articles with highway numbers

Message 1: Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames

In the original posting-- and John Dingley's most recent one-- I was
struck by the number of "colonial names" with articles in English
that come from French. Could that be the historical reason in English,
anyway? (Since countries are normally referred to with the article when
subjects in French.)

Leslie Morgan

I agree with the contributors who feel that the definite article has
colonial overtones. To shift the debate to another continent, consider
India: "The Punjab" immediately suggests the days of the Raj, and
every Punjabi I know (i.e. not just Khalistani secessionists!) says
"I come from Punjab". But then, Punjabi doesn't have articles either,
definite or indefinite ...

Sue Blackwell
School of English
University of Birmingham, U.K.

Message 3: Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames

In 1970 the twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur Ontario were
almalgamated into Thunder Bay. The cities were known collectively
as "The Lakehead", and although the motivation for this name was never
clear to me, it seems to mean that they are located at the 'head' (top?)
of the Great Lakes. At any rate, it was convenient to have a collective
name for the two cities, so that one could say "I'm going to the Lakehead"
instead of "I'm going to the Fort William - Port Arthur region". The
amalgamation was an unpopular move on the part of the Ministry of Urban
Affairs of the time because the two cities had separate histories going
back to the fur trading days. The city centres are several miles apart
and there was much rivalry between them.

When amalgamation became a fact, a plebiscite was held to decide on the
new name. We were given three choices: The Lakehead, Lakehead, and Thunder
Bay. Now Thunder Bay is the bay on Lake Superior on which both cities
are located, but it sounded much to rural for most residents. The obvious
choice was The Lakehead, since this is what everyone had always called the
cities anyway. However, the vote was split by arguments on talk shows
and in the local press concerning the status of names with the definite
article. I recall even the day before the vote that people would call
the radio stations to make desperate pleas: Don't vote for 'The Lakehead'!!
It sounds like an area, not like a city name!! vs. Don't let this
government change our traditional name from Lakehead to The Lakehead.

The result? Thunder Bay, with a minority of votes, won out, much to
EVERYone's dismay.

BTW, I found it irksome that when the two newpapers joined forces, their
separate names, The News-Chronicle and the Times-Journal, were also
amalgamated, yielding two different names, one for the morning and one
for the evening edition: The Times-News and the Chronicle-Journal. It
seems that nobody had a sense for the compound meanings and viewed the
new names as a meaningless combination of newpapery names, just as they
must have viewed the old ones.
Ron Smyth
smythlake.scar.utoronto.ca

In response to Michael Erickson's posting commenting on the fact that
Bay Area folk refer to San Francisco as "The City": before moving to
"The City" (San Francisco), I went to school in Rochester, NY, where
many of the students were from New York City, "The City". Needless to
say it got me for awhile hearing SF referred to as "The City" when to me
that meant NYC. Well, I got over it.

On a slightly different note, I have a friend from Northern Indiana,
from a place she calls "The Region"; I guess this is like "The City" but
larger and less metropolitan, huh?

As for "the" highways, I don't remember "the" being used on numbered
highways in the Bay Area or Santa Cruz. Here in Massachusetts, the sound
of "The 90", "The 95", etc. is very weird; but we do have "The Pike" or
generically, "The highway" (as opposed to West Coast, "The Freeway").

Jeff Runner

Message 5: Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames

For what it's worth, in regard to `the Ukraine', peripheries usually take the
article in English, whether native or borrowed: the Border, the Military
Border (in reference to the southern provinces of Austria), the March, the
Mark, the Banat, the Outlands, etc. However, German compounds for old
border provinces don't seem to do this (in English): Kurmark, Altmark,
Neumark, etc.

Message 6: Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames

Re Dan Slobin's and Paul Chopin's notes on Northern/Southern California
freeway names:

I used to work in Santa Ana and Oakland, and in both places get
frequent directions to visit customer sites. I noticed at least
8 years ago that SoCal folks almost always used an article plus
the freeway number ("Take the five to the 405, then get off on
the 55...). In Northern California (where I lived for 18 years),
I NEVER heard "the 101, the five, the 17." Instead, one would "Take
80 to 580 to I-5." In Northern Cal, the article is only used with
a highway's (non-numeric) proper name: "The MacArthur is backed up
all the way to the Nimitz."

This is one of those little things I could never get anyone else
to notice. So glad it's finally receiving its proper attention! :)
___________________________________________________________
Lynda Milne Internet: lmilneumich.edu
Project FLAME BITNET: HLF5UMICHUM
2018 Modern Language Bldg
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1275 Telephone: 313-763-0454
___________________________________________________________

Message 7: Re: 3.914 Articles in Placenames

Regarding the recent spate of postings concerning the definite article in
freeway names in California: in southern southern California, that is, the
San Diego area, no article is used: It's "take 5 to 805 to 8 east..."

Jeff Kaplan
Linguistics
SDSU

Michael A. Erickson (miericksindiana.edu) asks:

>> By the way, in the Bay Area, San Francisco is referred to as "The
>> City". Is this the case in other metropolitan areas?

San Francisco can't possibly be The City. The City is New York! Does this
answer your question? (:->)

 I can refer to highways either with or without the article:
"880", "the 880". However, there are a couple of differences between
the two. First, "the 880" is marked; although I might say it, I
would do so only in a discourse where my interlocutor has already
used the articled version. In a grad-school term paper, I argued
that this kind of choosing between synonyms depends partly on
recency priming.
 The second difference, for me, is that "the 880" is NOT
a name. Rather, it is a truncated description that elliptically
means "the 880 highway" or "the 880 freeway". Now I have a question
for those speakers who use "the 880" as the unmarked variant: how
many of you feel that "the 880" is a lexicalized name, and how many
intuit that it is an elliptical description?
 Presumably it started, for everyone, as a description, and
is now on the way to becoming a name. It would be interesting to
trace how far along the path this is, and to see whether it
correlates with the age and regional origin of the speaker.

Paul Saka
UI Urbana

In Ontario there is a variation on the use of the definite
article with highway numbers. Highways are numbered by some system
whose origin I do not know, but that number is prefixed by "4" (making
a number in the 400's) if it is a divided highway (4 lanes or more). The
same highway's desigation will vary at different points along its length.
For example, Highway 17 comes into Ottawa, and is designated Highway 417
through the metropolitan area. The usage with respect to definite articles
is that Highways in the 400's take the definite article and others take
either nothing or the word "highway". So when asked for the fastest route
to Toronto, one would reply that "you take 16 [or: Highway 16] south to the
401, then stay on the 401 all the way to Toronto."
 My experience in the American midwest (Ohio to be precise) is that you
don't use the definite article with interstate highway numbers, though the
the use of the "I" is variable. So (in Cincinnati) one might say "Take 75
north for 60 miles" or "Take I 75 north for 60 miles."

 What pattern emerges from these data (including the California data
posted earlier)?