Definite article

Reading Sarah's recent post about the stove she's fitting to Chertsey's back cabin got me thinking about the use of the definite article in product names.

Her stove is an Epping. Or, rather, it's "The Epping". (I've borrowed your photo, Sarah, I hope you don't mind.)


Products which are inseparable from "The" include newspapers ("Did you see that article in The Times yesterday?"); pubs and restaurants ("I'll see you in the King's Head"); and bands (There's a group called 'The Verve'; have you heard of it?). Try saying those without "the".


Some rock groups, of course, lose their definite article. My favourite rock group from my teens started out as The Pink Floyd. (They'd become merely Pink Floyd by the time I started listening to their music.) The Rolling Stones and The Beatles keep their "the"s. Actually, I'm more than a little out of touch with modern popular music - what other bands have lost their "The"?


And there's a disconcerting trend for supposedly upmarket bars to lose bits of their former names. Our local, to which I shall always refer as "The King's Head", occasionally displays an A-board announcing goings-on at, if I remember correctly, "Kings". Ugh.


What products are there, apart from stoves for back cabins, called "The ... (something)"? I'm sure there used to be many more than nowadays. I'd have to look through an old newspaper for advertisements ... I know! I have a very early Radio Times. There's bound to be an example there ...

Hmm. I've just looked through a 1964 Radio Times - fascinating - but nothing to back up my theory.


But here's the really old one, from 1928 (above). If the 1964 copy seems ancient, this from just six years after the British Broadcasting Company was formed - yes, it was a company before it became a corporation - seems almost from the beginning of time. There's an advertisement for The Prudential Assurance Company Ltd. And one for The Winston Simplified Dictionary (send no money: free approval is the best test of value). And look! For £1 down in 1928 you could have listened to the wireless on The Langham Radio Speaker.

There's an advertisement for holidays on the Norfolk Broads too, but I'll save that for another post.