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I was wondering what people think about this country name. I have always just known it as "Gambia", but recently found out it seems to be strictly "The Gambia". Thus many would write: "I was in The Gambia last year."
Google reveals 159,000 cases of 'The Gambia' and 390,000 cases of 'Gambia' in a direct comparison.
Is this odd to anyone else? Particularly the capitalization of our beloved definite article mid-sentence seems a bit weird to me. Am I the only one not clued in on this? Are there many other (country or non-country) examples of this in English? I mean, I guess people write 'I was at The Dorchester' (meaning the hotel), but somehow this doesn't seem as odd to me. Oh, well.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Island groups are often named like that. The Cyclades, The Sorades, The Hebrides, the Orkneys. So what is the Gambias? I don't remember ever hearing of them Gotta go search.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Good thinking, Dr. Bill, and, um, well, Crispy, we're the United States of America... Don't think the "the" is normally capitalized, though.
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The first thing I found was in German, which BY can deal with so much better than I can, I'll leave it to him.
Gambia ist in insgesamt sechs Verwaltungsbezirke (divisions) gegliedert. Diese Bezirke sind wiederum in Verwaltungsgebiete unterteilt (districts). Viele dieser Gebiete sind identisch mit den historischen Territorien der traditionellen Stammesreiche oder Königtümer. Die sechs Divisionen haben jeweils einen für vier Jahre gewählten Bezirksrat, den "Area Council", der zugleich eine Exekutiv- und Legislativ-Institution mit recht hoher Autonomie ist."
Sounds as though there is a group of very loosely federated small political units.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Here you go, Crispy:
Gambia, The (găm'bēə, gäm'–) , officially Republic of The Gambia, republic (1995 est. pop. 1,150,000), 4,361 sq mi (11,295 sq km), W Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west and surrounded on the remaining three sides by Senegal. The capital is Banjul.
From The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 1999, Columbia University Press, via Atomica.
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Pooh-Bah
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Met an Australian who had worked there once. He called it "The Gambia". Dunno if that's representative, though.
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Did he mention what it was like? Information, man, information!
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Pooh-Bah
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I have not been there, but The Gambia is a small, very poor country, with an AIDS problem, on the west coast of Africa that has been trying, with some success to build a tourist industry. It is named after the Gambia river - I believe. And that is all I know without looking it up.
The only other place with a similar name that comes to mind is not a country but a town in the Netherlands - The Hague (or Den Hague).
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The only other place with a similar name that comes to mind is not a country but a town in the Netherlands - The Hague (or Den Hague).You stole my little bit o thunder, dxb. Glad I read through the entire thread before posting, thus avoiding the dreaded chopped liver syndrome. 
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A chum of mine was sent to The Gambia as a specialist in agricultural communication. He described to me how he arrived in country by airplane. Then he boarded a bus. Then he road in a private car. Then he got on a launch and went up river. And, when he arrived at his destination, he was welcomes by a large red-and-white metal sign on the building at the dock which read "Coca Cola."
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Pooh-Bah
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The Australian I met who had been to the Gambia was an opthalmologist. He was in The Gambia investigating river blindness incidence (or something like that) for WHO. He was notable for the pebble-lense glasses he wore himself and the fact that he hadn't heard my one and only opthalmology joke - what do you call an Alaskan eye doctor? - an optical Aleutian.
I know nothing about The Gambia beyond what has been said above.
Den Hague is the CAPITAL of Holland. It's not a town, it's a city. It's quite extraordinarily beautiful, too.
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>Den Hague is the CAPITAL of Holland.
Nice splicing of two languages, there, Capfka. I allus thought you could say "The Hague", or "Den Haag", or, if you're feeling archaic " 's-Gravenhage" - I ain't never seen "Den Hague" before.
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Pooh-Bah
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If we are being picky, actually The Hague is not the capital of Holland.
The Hague (Den Haag, also called 's-Gravenhage) is the capital of South Holland. Haarlem is the capital of North Holland (two separate administrative areas as in Carolina or Dakota). Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, although the seat of government is in The Hague.
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Pooh-Bah
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The Hague is where the parliament is, it's where all the foreign embassies are, it's where the royal family lives, ergo it's the capital. Haarlem is dead and alive by comparison. Amsterdam is certainly the financial capital, but. It also has a monopoly on red lighting in Europe. I love Amsterdam (having spent quite some time working out of there in 1997!). But The Hague is top dog.
And, yes, I goofed over the spelling. Big deal!
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Pooh-Bah
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Yeah, well, I goofed first. Knew there was something wrong when I wrote it. And you're right, it is a beautiful city with some lovely suburbs. I find Amsterdam to be more cosmopolitan, but in some ways less Dutch! Den Haag and Rotterdam also have their red light areas, but they are less in your face.
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old hand
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Thanks for the feedback on The Gambia. I'm surprised how everyone takes the capitalised 'The' in stride. It just looks a little funny to me. Anyway, I've been rapidly learning about The Gambia since yesterday. You see, I'm translating a report about so called Community Forestry in The Gambia - and some Gambian-German Project.
I really like Den Haag too, btw. I've been there a few times and consider it a place I'd really like to live. I spent a fantastic night in Leiden just outside The Hague in, amongst other places, a smokey little jazz club. My other favourite Dutch town is Maastricht near Aachen; not that I know that many Dutch towns.
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Another country that used to have "The" while I was growing up was Ukraine. We started leaving it off only about 20 years ago, I believe.
As Ukraine means "on the edge/border" perhaps it made sense to earlier people to refer to it as "The Edge."
Gambia seems to be named after The Gambia River, and the various peoples are the Gambia, too. So Republic of The Gambia could also be called "of the Gambians."
Slava
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Whilst I have never been a philatelist of any sort, I do remember from my youth seeing postage stamps from the country in question - they had "The Gambia" printed on them. Which is, I suppose, why I accept the name unquestioningly.
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I enjoyed reading this thread, and although i am late....
The Netherlands and the USA, have the definite article preceding the country name, because they are pluralised forms. In Gambia's case, the region (Senegal and Gambia) was colonized by the British and since its split from Senegal, it continues to use the term that the British used for the specific region that was geographically located around the river. *The Vatican seems like another example of this - 'the' used to define a location within a location.
The Ukraine, I don't understand. The country escaped the Brits and so, I can only imagine that it is translated from Ukrainian. Is it called *the Ukraine in the regional tongue?
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Carpal Tunnel
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I seem to remember their complaining about foreigners using the in front of their country's name, prefering simply Ukraine. I also believe that the language does not have a definite article, so it would be impossible for the native name to be The Ukraine.
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"I also believe that the language does not have a definite article..."
True of both (the)Ukrainian and Russian languages.
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Pooh-Bah
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Which explains a lot of the slavic angst, I would have thought!
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my computer was out for a few days, and i was about to let this die, but since its still an active thread, i won't let it pass with out The Bronx (Wolfa, how could you have failed me?) all of the other boroughs of NCY are just names, (Manhattan, Queens,Brooklyn, Staten Island) but The Bronx is always The Bronx. even the yankies are The Bronx Bombers.
I wonder if its a dutch thing? The Bronx (and for the matter, The Bowery (a street/area in Manhattan) are both name that came from the dutch. but Harlem is just Harlem in NY, and there are plenty of dutch place names that don't have The.
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What did Bronx (Bronks?) originally mean? I never knew it was from Dutch.
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Carpal Tunnel
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the southern tip of the bronx was country estate of one Jonus Bronchs.(there are several recorded spelling of the name) Several other 'estates' give name to neighborhoods.. the Morris family estate became Morrisania area, the Throggs family estate became Throggs Neck (and the east river bridge take its name from the neighborhood)-the Van Courtland* estate is now a 400 acre park in the north bronx. it still has the brick estate house, parts dates from the 1790's, with the bulk of it built in the 1820 and its used to house administrative offices for the park, and a museum.
*the van Courtland's moved north, up river after the english gained control of manhattan, dropped the van and have a NY county named after them, courtland apples (not a major variety like delicious, but still one that is commercial available) is from courtland county..
Dutch was spoken(and there were newpapers -weekly's-in dutch) in part of NY upstate counties till WWI!
Other place/areas names in the bronx trace back to early english settlers (the Pelhams,) and even Anne Hutchison, (driven out of Boston and Rhode Island on charges of witchcraft, she ended up in the wild of the bronx, were she was a victim of one of the indian wars.
some place names are hobson jobson's, i forget the original name for the granite outcroping the is now called 'Anthony's Nose' but i do remember the dutch name made more sense!
(Rubick, anthony's nose was the lovely golden granite outcropping, at the far side of the Bear Mountain bridge.. the one you just missed getting a great photo of--because the light changed.)
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The Bronx Bombers
So Ty Cobb, The Georgia Peach, was from The Georgia?
There's also The Dalles, Oregon.
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...and, as befits a cosmopolitan borough, there are many other nationalities whose names have been gratefully adopted. Moshulu Parkway and Rochambeau Avenue could well grace any spelling-bee or geography list...(not to mention the Koskiusco Skyway but that isn't in the Bronx !)
P.S. I've also seen it spelled "Mosholu." Indeed, Google® says -olu over -ulu by 1610:167. I can only plead being a native and learning it from the street signs (that would make it difficult to put on a spelling bee...)
P.P.S. (They were all welcomed foreign participants for the Colonists during the Revolution.)
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