Omitting the 'the' when referencing a car... an epidemic

[rix]

Difficult to come up with a meaningful thread title but noticing this more and more lately.

Started to resonate for me, I think, with Gordon Murray repeatedly refering to 'with T50 we did...' (as opposed to 'with the T50 we tried...' but this pretentious guff has quicky been adopted by the otherwise immaculate Mr Metcalfe, and seemingly spreading itself through all you tube content creators!

Anyone noticed this garbage, or just me??!

[daqinggregg]

No. I however, noticed a tendency for people to use ‘epidemic’ when they mean ‘tendency’ could it be, they feel the former doesn’t lend enough gravitas to their discussion?

[ShredderXLE]

Same with the word "baby".

[dave123456]

I think my is better than the. It’s not the only example of that model so ‘the’ is not particularly accurate either.

[Antony Moxey]

rix said:

Difficult to come up with a meaningful thread title but noticing this more and more lately.

Started to resonate for me, I think, with Gordon Murray repeatedly refering to 'with T50 we did...' (as opposed to 'with the T50 we tried...' but this pretentious guff has quicky been adopted by the otherwise immaculate Mr Metcalfe, and seemingly spreading itself through all you tube content creators!

Anyone noticed this garbage, or just me??!

Every single motor manufacturer does this with their blurb about their cars, as does Apple with the iPhone (sorry, as does Apple with iPhone).

[AdeTuono]

Of all the things to get worked up about...

[Riley Blue]

This irks me more; the unnecessary inclusion of possessive adjectives e.g 'my' as in, "I like my beer."

[slopes]

AdeTuono said:

Of all the things to get worked up about...

But this is PistonHeads these days, where an argument can take up several pages for no reason.

[dave123456]

slopes said:

AdeTuono said:

Of all the things to get worked up about...

But this is PistonHeads these days, where an argument can take up several pages for no reason.

In fairness on the triviality spectrum I’m sure most of us get irked about some fairly banal stuff. We just only notice what bothers us.

[John D.]

Riley Blue said:

This irks me more; the unnecessary inclusion of possessive adjectives e.g 'my' as in, "I like my beer."

Pet hate of mine too.

[AC43]

ShredderXLE said:

Same with the word "baby".

Yeah that's a weird one. I've noticed it on her quite a lot when people say things like "Daughter did this", "daughter did that".

Why don't they type "My daughter"?

Very odd.

[LimaDelta]

An Americanism. Like saying "I play guitar", rather than "I play the guitar".

Not any more right or wrong, just different.

[GasEngineer]

AC43 said:

ShredderXLE said:

Same with the word "baby".

Yeah that's a weird one. I've noticed it on her quite a lot when people say things like "Daughter did this", "daughter did that".

Why don't they type "My daughter"?

Very odd.

Even more annoying is when they refer to their daughter by putting "ette" after their own forum username.

[TUS373]

I noticed when Ford released the Mondeo around the same time as Vauxhall did the Vectra (I am thinking mid 1990s) that Ford referenced 'Mondeo' and Vauxhall 'the Vectra'.

I'm not a grammar afficionado but is one 'the definite article' and the other isn't?

See this with country names. Until recently, Ukraine was The Ukraine, yet Netherlands is perhaps more commonly still The Netherlands.

[Dingu]

Its almost like Language evolves.

[tangerine_sedge]

slopes said:

AdeTuono said:

Of all the things to get worked up about...

But this is PistonHeads these days, where an argument can take up several pages for no reason.

No it isn't.




























etc etc

[Randy Winkman]

LimaDelta said:

An Americanism. Like saying "I play guitar", rather than "I play the guitar".

Not any more right or wrong, just different.

I agree. And as an Englishman, I'd say that in the case of your example, "I play guitar" is more logical.

[Doofus]

John D. said:

Riley Blue said:

This irks me more; the unnecessary inclusion of possessive adjectives e.g 'my' as in, "I like my beer."

Pet hate of mine too.

Drives me bonkers. I've spent years trying to find out if there's a name for this syntax. If there isn't, there should be.

[lancslad58]

Doofus said:

John D. said:

Riley Blue said:

This irks me more; the unnecessary inclusion of possessive adjectives e.g 'my' as in, "I like my beer."

Pet hate of mine too.

Drives me bonkers. I've spent years trying to find out if there's a name for this syntax. If there isn't, there should be.

It's called , "whofkingcareswhatitscalled"

[Doofus]

No, I'm fairly sure that's not it.