"The" Philippines

[Jonathan Lighter]

"The Yukon" is sort for "The Yukon [River] Territory."  I should think "The Gambia" has a similar origin.

JL

Michael McKernan <mckernan at LOCALNET.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Michael McKernan
Subject: Re: "The" Philippines
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>>In the Netherlands one finds "The Hague." There also used to be
>>"The Argentine."
>>Slightly closer to home is "The Yukon."
>>
>>JL
>
>and "The Dalles" (Ore.), not to mention "The Bronx"

I don't know about The Hague, or The Dalles, but I am sure that The Gambia
came from British occupation of the Gambia River's mouth (Banjul, once
Bathurst), and subsequent colonization of as much of the river banks
upstream as they felt was convenient, and properly sticking to the French
who colonized Senegal (which totally surrounds The Gambia except for the
coast around Banjul).

The Argentine is surely derived from Rio de la Plata (River of Silver,
hence Argentina/Argentine).

Spanish tends to use the definite article with the name of any country
(although that may be somewhat abandoned these days, particularly in the
case of Spain itself). When I lived in Ecuador, we always said 'el
Ecuador' and 'el Peru', even 'el Argentina' and 'el China', cuz countries
are masculine (patria =fatherland). More and more, I seem to hear the
article being omitted. But I bet any Spanish speaker would say 'las Islas
Filipinas', because isla (island) is feminine, and las Filipinas would be
understood as 'the Filipina women'. (I suppose that the Spanish thought
England, being an island, was feminine as well, although it was promoted to
a "land": 'Inglaterra.' 'Course, tierra is feminine as well...so merry
old England gets a la from most Spanish-speakers: 'la Inglaterra' (some do
use 'el', but more probably omit the article than use either gender form
nowadays.

The Yukon, I think, also is derived from the Yukon River.

I believe there is (or was) a Bronx River, though if the borough was named
for the river or vice versa, I don't know.

Don't forget that we once had "The Soviet Union" (hardly a river, that),
and "The United Arab Republic" (which had a river or two, though hardly
eponymous; but hey, a good candidate for oxymoron, no?) 'Course, these
disunited unions surely follow different 'rules'.

If we are going to keep this up, perhaps we should consider why rivers
require the definite article, as well as some non-nation place names such
as The Everglades, The (Wisconsin) Dells, etc. Seems to me that deserts
also require the definite article, so it's nothing to do with water...

Michael McKernan


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