The earth v. Earth (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Margaret Lee]

I grew up hearing Southerners say "a cancer"; on the other hand, I heard "the headache," rather than "a headache."

  Margaret Lee

"Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:
  Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

I've heard folks in the rural South referring to having "the cancer"
instead of what seems to me to be standard usage "cancer".

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Doug Harris
> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 9:08 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: The earth v. Earth
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Doug Harris
> Subject: Re: The earth v. Earth
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> On a _much_ smaller scale (but similarly curious,
> language-wise), is the British practice of referring to
> certain countries with the 'the' article preceding their
> name. To wit, The Gambia, The Lebanon.
> I believe I know the historic logic for this, but there was a
> similar logic for their use of the 'aeroplane / aeroport'
> spellings, which The Sunday Telegraph (and others) persisted
> in using until at least the 1980's. Wisely, though, albeit
> with much kicking and screaming, I imagine, the latter paper
> seems to have come 'round to using 'airport' _except_ when
> referring to the French versions of places where aero...
> whoops, airplanes land.
> (the other) doug
>
>
>
> I'm pretty sure - though I wouldn't bet money on it - that,
> back in the '40's and '50's - the earth was referred to as
> "_the_ earth." More recently, it seems to me, "the earth" has
> been replaced by "Earth."
> Here's an instance that's neither "the earth" nor "Earth." It
> could be a simple typo, however.
>
> -Wilson
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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