The... (More Interesting Than That Might Sound)

[AndiFlatland]

We have a symbol for 'at' - @. And we have 2 symbols for 'and' - +, &. Why don't we have one for 'the'? After all, it's probably the most frequently used word in just about every language. Make sense, wouldn't it!

[grasscarp]

No

[grasscarp]

Russian language doesnt have a word for The at all (or A)

[DTCwordfan]

Not every language, Vietnamese doesn't have a definitive or indefinitive article - we had a Viet in our factory in France and he spoke the language without the definitive....just try writing English like this.

[Old_Geezer]

If my SMS text is overlong the common solution is to delete any 'the's and that can often solve the issue whilst the meaning remains clear. So I'd suggest we already have a symbol for it, the null symbol.

[AndiFlatland]

I keep a very large private archive of audio and video recordings from radio and TV, and to ensure I don't miss things, I have to go through the Radio Times with a fine toothcomb every week. Over about the last 15 years, I've noticed an annoying - and lazy - tendency for them to drop both the definite and indefinite article: (The) Material World, (The) Living World, (The) Natural World, (A) Book at Bedtime, etc. Is our language gradually heading the same way as the Russian and Vietnamese languages? And the announcers are actually introducing the programmes without the def/indef articles, which just sounds plain wrong - it's not the way most of us speak. In the case of The Natural World, the on-screen title actually followed the Radio Times' initial omission of the word some months later, and when I called the BBC information line to berate them for their laziness, I was told that it was the producer of the programme who had actually requested it be listed that way. So, stupid producer. It makes me wonder, if they took it to the extreme, how they would have listed an ITV programme of about 15 years ago, called The Time, The Place... wouldn't have made a lot of sense, really, would it!

[craft1948]

So Gordon Brown was right when he referred to The Eastenders?

[heathfield]

Interesting idea, There is an Old English letter that could substitute for 'the'. It's called 'yogh', and is pronounced as an 'ie', sounding similar to 'ye' as in 'Ye Old Tea Shoppe'. It looks like the number '3'. The reason it disappeared was due to the introduction of printing, and type fonts, which came from the continent, didn't include this letter. The letter 'Z' was a common substitute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogh

[grasscarp]

I used to work at the BBC (for ten years). We didnt take any notice of what the public said then and it probably hasnt changed.

[THECORBYLOON]

Why do you look through the Radio Times rather than look through Radio Times?

[Quizmonkey]

...except the Ye in 'Ye Old tea Shoppe' wasn't pronounced 'ye' at all!

[shoota]

We should replace the archaic 'thou art' with 'yoghurt' then perhaps?

[Maggoty]

Hey - us northerners are half way there. We drop the h and e :-)

[vulcan42]

National Trust has recently spent thousands of pounds changing everything from "The National Trust" to "National Trust". This was pointed out to N T members and a lot of them hadn't even noticed, another example of wasting money.

[heathfield]

Quite right, Quizmonkey. The 'y' in 'ye' was yet another printers substitute for a letter that was present in the Old English alphabet, but was absent from their type fonts, and which was pronounced 'th'. So originally the 'y' in 'Ye' was to be pronounced 'th'. But the modern pronunciation of 'ye' is as it's spelled.

[AndiFlatland]

Sorry for the delay - no internet connection at home.

Heathfield: Yes, I've been aware of the symbol for 'yogh' for many years, and this may be as good a solution as any to what I asked. Of course, with most average members of the public (which I'm assuming that most of you are better than...(!)), the symbol looking like a 3 with a tail may well be as misconstrued as the German symbol for 'ss' - ß - which most people in this country still see as a capital B.

Grasscarp: Thanks for that. Yes it's unfortunate that the BBC, who I regard as the best educational system we have, and possibly in the world, still have this superior attitude to being shown to be wrong or being challenged, and only affect contrition or offer apologies slowly, until there is no choice - cf. Savile - and it's a long, painful process, like pulling teeth.

Old Geezer: I'm probably one of about 10 people in the whole country who still have no mobile phone (hate the things). So please can you enlighten me as to what the null symbol looks like?

Vulcan42: Great name (the answer... to Life, the Universe and Everything...) I wasn't aware that THE National Trust had done that as well. That's unbelievable. What is wrong with these people? They should get over their big selves, and spend their money, time, energy and resources on the things they exist for, and not on things that really don't matter (...not that the missing 'the's' don't matter, or I wouldn't have raised the point). I do wonder if this has happened in response to the internet and search engines, where searching under 'the' is utterly futile. Well, as far as I'm concerned, anybody who searches under 'the' deserves all the crap they have to go through!

Many thanks to all - it's been interseting. Now it's over to Matt Johnson of The The. (Is their lack of real success due to The Radio Times being unable to find a way of listing his band when they appeared on music shows?)

[ClareA]

I so wish there was a symbol on my phone's character set menu equivalent to the shorthand for 'with'. I'm not fluent in shorthand, but just to type a 'c' with (ha ha!) a little acute accent above it would be great. I realise this would save me positively seconds!