On Sun, 6 Sep 2009 17:33:09 +0100, "Norman Wells"
wrote:

james wrote:
In message , Norman Wells
writes
james wrote:
In message , Fevric J. Glandules
writes
james wrote:

It's not a regional thing, is it? I've spent a fair amount of
time in "the Surrey" (more specifically, "the Farnham") and I don't
recall a tendency to stick the definite article in front of things
that don't take it.

For a non-factious reply to comment, it's a fairly well-established
convention in English that places are not dignified with the
definite article whereas things are.

It is a 'regional' thing though. Regions are always qualified by
'the', for example the South, the Auvergne, the Severn estuary.

Good point. If I were writing dialogue, I'd certainly have a character
say of a visit to, say, London. "I'm going down to the smoke" rather
than "I'm going down to smoke."

It's all a matter of one's 'feeling' for language and style.

I'm gonna talk about something that really matters: cats. They
definitely have a feeling for language and style.

No they don't. They just have a feline for it.


http://www.mindjolt.com/games/cat-shoot