Some see it as expendable: I have often heard students say that if the word count on your paper is too high, just cut the "the"s. "Almost all of them," they say, "add nothing to your paper."
Some take advantage of "the:"
as a means of beefing up their word count. That's like inviting someone to third wheel just because you're not allowed to be alone with the girl you like, then ditching them once you get to the party. Shame on you.
Some belittle "the:" think about it. Who here like the Lord of the Rings? How about the Chronicles of Narnia? Does anybody think Leo will finally win for his role in the Revenant? Does anybody notice the problem? The word "the" is part of the titles of each of these movies (and waaayy more), but it doesn't get capitalized with "Lord" and "Rings," for instance. If it were in the middle, like Percy Jackson and the Olympians, that would be different; articles like "the" and "a" don't get capitalized in the middle of a title, but the should be when they're the first word--that's how we know where the title begins. Otherwise, "the" just gets forgotten as it were never there, which leads me to my next point.
Some forget "the" altogether: I wrote a paper last semester about Avengers 2. Later that month, I went to the midnight premiere of Force Awakens. Then I went to California, where I relived the good ol' days by watching Sandlot. "The" is also part of these titles, but we forget to say it at all. Or worse, we choose not to! How would you feel if you worked on a movie but then didn't get your name in the credits? I actually know some successful actors who got slighted in one of their films by a director who didn't want to share the glory, and they were ticked. It wasn't pretty.
Let me tell you something about "the." There are over one million words in the English language. To categorize, there are nine parts of speech: noun, adjective, verb, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, and article. If English were a Socialist language, each part of speech would contain roughly 113,901 words. Articles, however, have 3: a, an, and, obviously, the. That, to me, tells me both how special "the" is and how much we need it in order to communicate. We couldn't speak without "the." Try writing an essay without it. You can't do it while being grammatically correct. We need "the." Depending on the source, you'll find that the word "run" has 645 meanings, making it the word with most definitions in the English language. The word "drunk" has the most synonyms, with 2985 (Benjamin Franklin wrote a book about it. Also, all 2985 synonyms technically tie with "drunk" for having the most synonyms). But "the" means one thing and is the only thing that can mean it. There is no synonym of "the," and there is no alternate definition. It has one job, and no word even comes close to replacing it. Now that's a monopoly!
The value of "the" cannot be overstated. I dare say no language could exist without some form of "the" (many languages have two, signifying either male or female objects, e.g., "el" and "la" in Spanish). So let's not neglect it.
Sadly, I can think of several people in my life whom I have under-appreciated. I had no idea that they would be so influential to me, that something they said would stick in my mind for years to come. I'm so sorry that I didn't treat them the way I ought to have treated them. Many of them are gone. They have probably forgotten me. I hope they don't resent me.
Everybody deserves to be treated as a valuable piece of life's puzzle. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship...There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." Words have meaning, and words have purpose. So do people. Everybody. There is something to learn from everyone around you, even if it's learning from what they do wrong what you should do right. Don't take for granted the potential gods and goddesses at your side.
In summary, all of the above-mentioned offenses against "the" can (and should) also be applied to people. People are not expendable. Everyone has unique value. Don't take advantage of people, don't belittle them, and don't forget about them. People matter. So does "the."
Here's the first video in a series about two brothers who learn to appreciate
each other over the years. Get your tissues handy!
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