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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 13 June 2019 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Burt Reynolds made a movie that’s a favorite of mine. It’s called THE END, and for years I was frustrated searching video catalogs, looking for it.

Then one day I had a crazy idea, and looked on a different page. Sure enough, there it was, listed as END, THE.

sigh

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Vinny Valenti
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Posted: 13 June 2019 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

One odd use of the definite article I've noticed all my life - we use it when referring to limited-access highways, but not roads which have traffic lights or intersections. So for example in Brooklyn, there's The Belt Parkway and Bay Parkway. The latter is a regular city street, the former is not.

There's a road on Long Island called Sunrise Highway, which spends all of Nassau County and a few miles of Suffolk County as a suburban signaled road with frequent traffic lights, and then for rest of the way all the way out to the Hamptons, it's a true highway. Growing up in Brooklyn, I didn't use the definite article, probably because I lived closer to Nassau and spent more of my time on the signaled section. For most of my life I've wondered if people that grew up on Eastern Long Island used it, though.


Edited by Vinny Valenti on 13 June 2019 at 8:16pm
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John Byrne
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Posted: 13 June 2019 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Vaguely related, I’ve noticed there seems to be a different set of pronunciation rules being taught for “the”. I was taught that it functions like “a” and “an”, being pronounced as “thee” when in front of a vowel, and as “thuh” otherwise. So, “thee apple” or “thuh book”.

Most Americans seem to use only “thuh”, however—“thuh apple”—and to my ears that sounds wrong.

Makes me wonder if my fourth grade teacher foisted her own preference on us unsuspecting kids! (Oh, Miss McCue, how could you?)

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Trevor Smith
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Posted: 14 June 2019 at 3:35am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

JB, that's the same "rule" I know for thee/thuh and
a/an. In fact it's so ingrained I don't even remember
ever learning it as a "rule" as such - it is just The
Way It Is. I simply cannot imagine hearing someone say
"thuh apple". It just sounds...uneducated, I guess, for
lack of a better word.
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Ronald Joseph
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Posted: 14 June 2019 at 7:02am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

There's a road on Long Island called Sunrise Highway...For most of my life I've wondered if people that grew up on Eastern Long Island used it, though.

I grew up in Nassau County (Valley Stream, to be exact) and then lived out east in Centereach for five years in my 30s. 

In Nassau, it was always just called Sunrise Highway, but out east, I've only heard people call it "27."  
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Vinny Valenti
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Posted: 14 June 2019 at 8:05am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Interesting....using route numbers was more of a Jersey thing, I thought - since they seem to be vehemently against naming their roads.
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 14 June 2019 at 8:12am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I live in the Five Towns. Never heard Sunrise Highway called "27," but I haven't had many connections out in Suffolk. Also never hear it referred to with "the." 

But it's never not been The Belt, as in... "What the f#ck are you doing? Don't get on The Belt!"


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John Byrne
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Posted: 14 June 2019 at 9:11am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Something curious I noticed when STAR TREK graduated to the Big Screen, the Enterprise lost her definite article.
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Jason G. Michalski
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Posted: 14 June 2019 at 9:30am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

I live in Brooklyn and grew up in Queens. It's always been the "The Belt", "The BQE, "The Jackie Robinson" and "The Van Wyke" for me, but the regular city streets were always "Woodhaven Blvd." and "Ocean Parkway" etc.

@Michael Penn, haha, yes. The Belt is the worst. I used to work in Cedarhurst. Small world!

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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 14 June 2019 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Yeah, I live in Los Angeles, where we call our freeways "the 5," "the 101," "the 10," etc.  All my friends are from other parts of the country and they've often commented about the "the's"!

For Batman, it's still in my head decades later that "Batman" is the Adam West TV show, while "THE Batman" is the Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams version.

Very annoying that Logan's second movie was called "THE Wolverine"--where did THAT come from?!
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Ronald Joseph
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Posted: 15 June 2019 at 7:12am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I live in the Five Towns. Never heard Sunrise Highway called "27,"

Right. Five Towns is in Nassau County. You've got to get east of Rte. 110 (the Nassau/Suffolk border) to hear people call it "27." 


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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 15 June 2019 at 11:32am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

"THE Batman" is the Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams version.

---
Yes, and runner-up to thuh Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers issues. And yet it was a foozle later on, not the foozle. :^)

I grew up with that thee and thuh thing, and another one I found was how we said zed rather than zee. I might've been the tail end of these things however as I can only barely recall 'God Save The Queen' being sung or played at school (but it seems to have worked as she's still with us).
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