h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's what you might call a favourable review. Must have a look. Have to finish "The View From the Center of the Universe" first, which I have yet to begin.

On a tangentially-related theme...I'm reading 'Muhhamad: The Biography of a Prophet' by Karen Armstrong. Rather good.

Changing tack:

The author, Letitia Salad...
The composer, Helmut von Klaptrap...
The poet, EJ Thribb...

but:

Joe Bloggs, a docker...

Clearly the use of the definite article reflects a certain status or prominence. However...if the person is so well known, why the need to explain who they are?

Hence, THE Bonobo?

>However...if the person is so well known, why the need to explain who they are?

Well, if I said I saw Elizabeth Taylor, the you might ask "what, the actress?" to distinguish her from everyone else with the same name.

You probably wouldn't ask the same question about Steve Smith, 'the' docker.

You would if you knew two Steve Smiths. If the name was unique then you wouldn't have such a problem.
"I just saw Madonna."
"Madonna the pop star?"
"No, Madonna what works in chippy on Rosamund Street!"

>>Well, if I said I saw Elizabeth Taylor...

Except that it's not only done with ambiguous cases, such as 'The actor, Richard Burton...' vs 'The explorer and orientalist, Richard Burton...'.

The 'the' in yours truly is something else again, no?
Francis the Talking Mule
Alexander the Great
Ming the Merciless
Van the Man

More than prominence, maybe? Exclusivity? There's only one notable bonobo?

The band 'Buzzcocks' used to insist on dropping the 'the', "Because we *are* the definite article."

There was always The The.

I've probably mentioned this before, but I find NASA's lack of use of 'the' sounds odd.

Personally, I'd refer to "*The* Hubble Space Telescope", and likely just "Hubble" (without the 'the') for short, but it does seem that NASA would say things like
"There goes Atlantis, carrying Hubble Space Telescope into orbit"
or
"It's my second visit to Space Station"

One of the reasons is to distinguish, as already mentioned. But it can also be used in a more rhetorical way to add weight to something:

Compare:

Mr X, the esteemed critic, says this is the novel of the century.

Mr X says this is the novel of the century.

I think it is a signal for a name-drop. "I had dinner the other night with Joe Bloggs the MP" not Joe Bloggs, docker.

But you wouldn't say "Mr X, an esteemed critic..." or "Mr Bloggs, an MP...".

yet

"Mr Smith - he's *a* plumber..."

All this is completely opague to my Croatian colleague who doesn't use *any* articles! (On account of there not being any in Slavic languages.)

OpaQue, even.

In Wales its Evans the plumber, isn't it?
As opposed to Evans the gas or Evans the 'lectric.
Or the bank manager, Evans the money.

Or the undertaker, Dai the Death.

>> ...reading 'Muhhamad: The Biography of a Prophet' by Karen Armstrong... <<


I'll look for it.
I read her 'History of God' a few years back. In fact I am on record somewhere here in the backlog as saying it is a must read for anyone with any interest in how humanity got itself so screwed up on religion. To learn she has done this biography is great news indeed!For several months I'd been looking for a good 'history' of the origins and 'evolution' of Islam. Ta.

Having no ego and being too old to be embarassed about anything I must confess I'd always (since first seeing it at Uni 40 years ago) thought Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" was about the prophet, so I was very disappointed when I finally recently read it.

When I complained about this to a local friend he was more than a little amused at my ignorance. But he in fact held the book in special contempt, desribing it as worse than "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" for its shallow, hollow promise of enlightenment and touchy-feely psuedo-philosophy of treacle and sacharin. Such a critique may be cruel but it's true.


~jwf~

... or Evans the roof-tiler. Or is that Evans above?

I remember now, the bank managers name was Owen.

>> But you wouldn't say "Mr X, an esteemed critic..." or "Mr Bloggs, an MP...". <<

Wouldn't you? They're only one of many (unless the context is Mr Bloggs, the MP for Slack Bottom) hence the indefinite article gives me no problem. Wouldn't the use of "the" here indicate (virtually) "the one and only" and be just a tad hyperbolic?

In discussing a court case, you refer to "the defendant" in the same way as "the judge", "the clerk of the court", etc not out of the prestige of the position, but because there is only one of them. "A defendant" implies that there was more than one, as with "a juror".
"The juror", like "the docker", automatically invites the question "which one?", doesn't it?

I got pondering while bunging a poinsettia in the bin about the plant genus Euphorbia. Is there any connection there with the word euphoria? Just one letter of a difference.

What a lovely idea! personally I call them 'spurge'.
Alas not -[a. L. euphorbea, f. Euphorbus, the name of a physician to Juba king of Mauritania.] Now I'm off to see what I can find out about HIM