Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 July 14

= July 14 =

"the" in the Philippines
I would like to ask why there is still a need to use the article "the" in countries like the Philippines, the Bahamas, the United States, etc. Why do we say, "I live in the Philippines" and not I live in Philippines? I don't think I have ever heard of anything like "I have been to the Malaysia." Thank you in advance for any elaborate answer that you can provide. Carlrichard 11:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The the is still customary for countries whose names are grammatically plural, such as the Philippines, the Bahamas, the United States, the Netherlands, etc. Some countries and with singular names traditionally had the the as well, such as the Ukraine, the Sudan, and the Gambia, but that's becoming less popular, and more people are saying simply Ukraine, Sudan, and Gambia. Whether the plural names will ever go that route remains to be seen. —Angr 11:32, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I have the impression that The Gambia is a counterexample, where the article came into official use late in the entity's existence. &mdash;Tamfang 18:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, but plural in what sense? All I notice is that all the countries that you have mentioned end in -s. Carlrichard 11:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess it's hard to know at what point a place name that etymologically originates as a plural is no longer felt as one. Certainly "Massachusetts", "Athens", and "Thebes", also originally plurals, are no longer felt to be plural, and people don't say "the Massachusetts", "the Athens", and "the Thebes". (I don't know if they ever did!) The Philippines and the Bahamas, of course, are archipelagos, so their names could be considered short for "the Philippine Islands" and "the Bahama Islands" (the same holds for the Seychelles, the Comoros, and the Maldives, but for some reason the Solomon Islands are AFAIK never called "the Solomons"). —Angr 12:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe The Donald can enlighten us. Clarityfiend 20:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * 349,000 Google hits say you're wrong. Corvus cornix 20:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Why do we not say the Indonesia (which is also an archipelago and therefore plural in sense)? Carlrichard
 * Because grammatically the word "Indonesia" is singular, regardless of the fact that it refers to a country that happens to be an archipelago. If you're talking about the archipelago per se, it would be "the Indonesian archipelago". -- JackofOz 21:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

'''Oh, I see. Hmm.. I wonder why Indonesia does not end in -s, like the Philippines, which is also an archipelago like Indonesia.''' Carlrichard 13:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Australia has a military operation in the Solomons, so it's very topical here. We always refer to "the Solomon Islands" or "the Solomons".  People also used to refer to Lebanon and Argentina as "the Lebanon" (probably a carry-over from "the Levant") and "the Argentine" (a particularly noticeable practice of media reporters during the Falklands War), but that seems to have stopped.  But what about "the Central African Republic" - does anyone say "I'm going to Central African Republic"?  On the original question, other than in adjectival usages, I've never heard the U.S. referred to as simply "United States".  One lives in "the" United States, not in United States.  This is a simple plural denoting a collection of states, so the "the" is entirely appropriate.  --  JackofOz 00:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Note that "the United States" could be seen as an example of another pattern; when the name is an actual noun phrase, rather than just a name, it takes an article.* Thus "in Russia" / "in the Soviet Union", "in England" / "in the UK", "in Yugoslavia" / "in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", etc. This takes place even when the noun phrase is not a formal name: "on the Crimean peninsula", "on the continent of Australia", "within the united city-states of Greece", etc. [* This is not supposed to be a formal definition or anything.] Tesseran 05:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * We also say The Czech Republic, though I have seen attempts to change that to Czechia. Corvus cornix 19:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't that be perilously close to Chechnya? +ILike2BeAnonymous 08:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

On a side note, the Philippines is plural in form in Spanish (Filipinas) and Latin (Philippinae). Since we're here, does anyone know why there's a 'the' in "The Hague" ?--Jondel 06:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The_Hague has some info on its naming - it is Den Haag (the hedge), or s'Gravenhaag (the Count's hedge) in Dutch. DuncanHill 09:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Seychelles, strangely enough, often appears without the "the," as in the title of the Wikipedia article. The government of Ukraine has made a conscious effort to stamp out the "the" in its name, since the "the" made it look like a region rather than a country in its own right. The irony is Slavic languages like Ukranian and Russian don't have a true equivalent to our word "the." -- Mwalcoff 13:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure the names of the Wikipedia articles for all these countries don't have a the: Comoros, Philippines, Netherlands, Bahamas, United States, etc. I think the Ukrainian government's efforts to get rid of the the worked in English, but not necessarily in other languages. I think most people in German still say die Ukraine, but then Germans say die Schweiz, die Slowakei, die Türkei, der Iran, and der Irak, without any implication that those places are mere regions, not countries. And in Irish virtually all country names take the definite article (the notable exceptions being Ireland and Scotland, which only take the definite article in the genitive, and England, which never does). —Angr 14:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

(By the way, why do we say the United kingdom, and not the United Kingdoms of Great Britain?
 * Because it is just one Kingdom. With one King (or Queen obviously). Queen Elizabeth is Queen of the United Kingdom. However the one kingdom consists of many nations. Cyta 16:13, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Also because it is not the United Kingdom of Great Britain, but rather the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland not being part of Great Britain at all. Algebraist 16:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * And as the monarch reigns over all those countries collectively but none of them invididually individually, it is wrong to refer to the Queen as "The Queen of England". The last time there was a "Queen/King of England" was at least as long ago as 1707, and even arguably as long ago as 1284, when Wales came under the control of England, the new entity becoming for some purposes known as "England and Wales" (but it's not clear cut).--  JackofOz 21:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

'''Ok. I thought Wales, Scotland and England were all "kingdoms"; that's why, I asked why we say only the United Kingdom and not United Kingdoms, like the United States.''' Carlrichard 13:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Not any more. They were all once upon a time independent kingdoms (or, in Wales's cases, a principality), but the way they ultimately came to comprise the United Kingdom of Great Britain bore no resemblance to the way the American colonies/territories came together to form the United States.  --  JackofOz 21:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Though, Queen of Canada, Qo Australia etc. would be correct. Independent countries.martianlostinspace 21:22, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Absolutely correct. But try telling that to most Aussies who want a republic.  They argue that we don't need an "English" or "British" monarch, but a home-grown head of state.  They forget, or maybe never knew, that we have a "Queen of Australia", entirely distinct from any other crowns that Elizabeth Windsor happens to wear.  I agree with their sentiment about having an entirely Australian head of state, but not with their uninformed argument.  --  JackofOz 23:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)