Ukraine vs The Ukraine

[Benjamin Barrett]

Isn't the the version still valid when referring to the region? My impression is that the the-less version is for the country. BB

Sent from my iPhone

> On 5 Mar 2014, at 13:49, W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Ukraine vs The Ukraine
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This morning, CNN interview with a Ukrainian official (foreign minister?):
> Interviewing reporter says <Crimea>. The Ukrainian official says <the
> Crimea>.
>     WB learned a set of place names in elementary school geography class
> in the '50s; this set of place names included a prefixed <the>. WB recalls
> reporting Angst to Linguist List upon hearing a BBC news reader dropping
> <the> from <the Ukraine>, maybe twenty years ago. WB was instructed that
> <the> was a relic of colonialism, and had to be eliminated, end of
> discussion. WB is still loath to give up the <the>, because that is what he
> grew up with, and you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead mouth.
>
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