Ukraine

[Ralph Cleminson]

Gary H. Toops has written:
>
> It has always been my impression that English country names like "the
> Lebanon" and "the Gambia" are British, not American; at least I grew up
> in the U.S. saying "Lebanon" and "Gambia."  Also, "Gold Coast" (when it
> existed) seemed American, "the Gold Coast" - British.
>
>

This is interesting.  I (as a speaker of British English) have always
felt that the definite article with these country names was
obligatory, and its absence from any of them (including the Ukraine)
grates on the ear.  I wonder whether it is Ukrainian familiarity with
American rather than British English (via the diaspora perhaps) that
has led them to consider the American norm as "correct" and to read
all kinds of non-existent political implications into the British
one.  Personally I feel rather affronted by Ukrainians telling me how
to speak my own language: I don't tell them how to speak theirs,
after all.  Wouldn't it be more civilised (with an s or a z (zed or a
zee)) just to accept it as another instance of Anglo-American
divergence and leave it at that?


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Ralph Cleminson, Reader in Slavonic Studies, University of Portsmouth
ralph at hum.port.ac.uk
http://www.hum.port.ac.uk/Users/ralph.cleminson/home.htm
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