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What happened to “the” ?

(33 Posts)
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merlotgran Mon 07-Oct-19 11:01:41

Sorry, Eglantine I mean.

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merlotgran Mon 07-Oct-19 11:00:24

Elegran is right.

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Eglantine21 Mon 07-Oct-19 10:51:39

Well now. The prefix “the” should, I believe, only be applied to commercial and privately owned ships - as in the Cutty Sark.

Naval ships should have the prefix HMS not “the” which is considered bad form.

Strickly speaking it should be HMY Brittanua although the Royal Yacht Britannia is acceptable.
Never just Royal Yacht Britannia.

But the same thing is happening with Primeminister Johnson, like President Trump.
No, no. The Primeminister,

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annodomini Mon 07-Oct-19 09:47:42

of example FOR example.

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annodomini Mon 07-Oct-19 09:47:14

On the other hand: Every time I mooch round M&S, I find so many items are predicated by 'the'. Jeans, of example are: 'the straight', 'the skinny'; 'the wide' etc. Teeshirts are categorised in the same way. Am I just being a fussy old pedant to be irritated by this peculiar way of labelling garments?

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MawB Mon 07-Oct-19 09:03:32

???????????MaizieD -bliddy predictive text!
I did of course mean the tea clipper inspired by Robbie Burns’s famous short shirted hero “Weel done Cutty Sark”!

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MaizieD Mon 07-Oct-19 08:58:40

I'm not sure about the Curry Sark, MawB. ?

Would that have been carrying spices from India?

IMO the capitalisation in this sentence is completely awry anyway "Boris Johnson is considering plans to replace Royal Yacht Britannia with...." as the royal yacht was called 'Britannia', not 'Royal Yacht Britannia'. It does need a 'the' to make grammatical sense if the capitalisation is corrected.

As for the rest, I think I will consult Patrick O'Brian and then get back to you... wink

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MawB Mon 07-Oct-19 08:39:39

My memory may be playing tricks, but didn’t we used to refer to the Queen Mary, the Titanic, the QE2 and the Royal Yacht Britannia?
Didn’t Nelson fight the battle of Trafalgar on the Victory and didn’t I take visiting friends to see the Curry Sark at Greenwich or the Mary Rose?
I am increasingly aware of this definite article’s disappearance and wonder when it happened.
This morningI have just read the following
Boris Johnson is considering plans to replace Royal Yacht Britannia with two £150 million ships paid for by the foreign aid budget
The new ships, one called “Britannia” and the other named the “Florence Nightingale” or “Mary Seacole”, would be used by members of the Royal family for overseas tours to the Commonwealth and other countries
Without getting into the political argument, does anybody perhaps with Naval connections, know when or why this change occurred? .

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