{"id":3021,"date":"2005-07-28T10:08:52","date_gmt":"2005-07-28T14:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2005\/07\/28\/3021.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:50:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:50:09","slug":"this-article-is-definitely-um","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2005\/07\/28\/this-article-is-definitely-um\/","title":{"rendered":"This article is definitely, um, er, yes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Given only a small amount of time at the computer these days, YHB has spent way way too much of it enjoying the discussion of thee<\/I> and thuh<\/I> over at the Language Log<\/a>. Since the conversation has become wide-ranging, David Beaver writes about The The, the The The, and The Who<\/a>, and brings up an odd little notion that sticks in my mind concerning the capitalization of the article in band names. He points out that devotees of The The<\/I> are unlikely to refer to them as the The<\/I>. On the other hand, Dead-heads and unDead-heads alike would refer to the Grateful Dead<\/I>, rather than The Grateful Dead<\/I>. This is not so much because of the joke; one refers to The Who<\/I> rather than the Who<\/I>. Part of this is how strongly the the<\/I> is part of the name of the band (unlike the Talking Heads, because the name of that band is Talking Heads). Try various bands in the sentence “I have four [band name] albums”:\n

I have four Grateful Dead<\/I> albums<\/blockquote>\nrather than \n
I have four The Grateful Dead<\/I> albums<\/blockquote>\n

Clearly, though, a person would have four The The<\/I> albums, and would never have four The<\/I> albums. But where to other bands fall? One has four Beatles albums, or four Klezmatics albums, but four The Band<\/I> albums, or (I think) four The Cars<\/I> albums. Well, I wouldn’t say “four The Cars albums”, but it also would be awkward to say “four Cars albums”; I suppose I would have four albums by The Cars. OK, a couple of lists:\n

  • The Cranberries<\/li>\n
  • The Clash<\/li>\n
  • The Cramps<\/li>\n
  • The Cure<\/li>\n
  • The Ink Spots<\/li>\n
  • The Kinks<\/li>\n
  • The Mr. T Experience<\/li>\n
  • The Police<\/li>\n
  • The Proclaimers<\/li>\n
  • The Specials<\/li><\/ul>\n

     

    • Beatles<\/li>\n
    • B-52s<\/li>\n
    • Go-Go’s<\/li>\n
    • Magnetic Fields<\/li>\n
    • Monkees<\/li>\n
    • Pogues<\/li>\n
    • Pretenders<\/li>\n
    • Ramones<\/li>\n
    • Rolling Stones<\/li>\n
    • Smiths<\/li><\/ul>\n

      Do I have those right? Is this something idiosyncratic, or is there general agreement about bands and the def article?\n

      chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek<\/I>,
      -Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Given only a small amount of time at the computer these days, YHB has spent way way too much of it enjoying the discussion of thee and thuh over at the Language Log. Since the conversation has become wide-ranging, David…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-log"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17477,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3021\/revisions\/17477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}