ARTICLES AND PRONUNCIATION WILLFULNESS

“The,” three simple letters, is neither a name for something (noun), nor is it an action (verb)—the two requirements for any English sentence—yet it appears in nearly every sentence.  For example, “The dog jumped.” Why is the there?

In English we have two other similar words, “a” and “an,” as in “A bottle broke” and “An elephant roared.” These show up almost as frequently as “the” and are also neither noun nor verb. All three are called “articles,” which I personally find to be ridiculous. The word article can mean “thing” or a piece of writing, like an “article” in a magazine. In other words, an “article” is a noun, but “a” and “an” and “the” are not!

Maybe long ago the teachers of language were struggling to explain these three words and in their desperation they settled on referring to them as “articles of speech.” I suppose I can forgive them, but why are they required? I know English is not the only language that uses these “no definition” words—though to be fair, “a” and “an” can mean “one.” This makes some sense to me as “one,” which was once long ago “ane,” is somewhat visually similar. The two equate to the French “un” and “une,” the Spanish “un,” “uno,” and “una.”

But the “le” and “les” in French, and the “la” and “las” and “los” in Spanish (the equivalents to “the” in English), seem to me only necessary because “that is the way we do things.” What kind of reason is that? Even if I accept that (because what choice do I have really?), the word “the” has two pronunciations with different connotations. The usual sound of the word rhymes with “uh” and is a dull, almost missed sound. The exception to the rule pronounces the word as though it were spelled “thee.”

What does this signify? “The” when pronounced “thee,” is calling attention to the noun which follows, singling it out from all the others of its kind. The dog (pronounced “thee”) is not just one of the bunch of dogs, it is unique in some way.

This change of pronunciation is not obvious as written, yet the native speaker almost always knows when to say the word as “thee” rather than “thuh,” presenting one more stumbling block for those learning the language.

#EnglishLanguage