Christian Science Monitor Blog | Verbal Energy — November 24, 2004.
Essay about the “inappropriately disappearing” use of the most frequenty-used word in the English language, the.
The other side of the inappropriately disappearing “the” is the upwardly mobile capitalized “the.” This tends to show up especially in the names of businesses where imagination seems in somewhat short supply, e.g., a bookstore on Main Street that calls itself The Bookstore on Main Street, and insists on that capital “T.” Or some nouveau hotelier opens something called, obviously but unmemorably, The Inn on the Square.