Re: THE IBM

[Jeroen Hendrix <jhe -at- MEDIASYS -dot- NL>]

On Monday, April 06, 1998 11:25 PM, Parks, Beverly
[SMTP:ParksB -at- EMH1 -dot- HQISEC -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL] wrote:
> My examples drift off topic (which may be a sign that the topic itself
> is drifting off topic and should be retired), but I think Chris is
right
> in that it may be a regionalism. Some people say "the I-10" when
> referring to Interstate 10 (or any other specific interstate highway).
> I, and most people I know, just say "I-10" without the "the".  Another
> example is "I'm going to the Wal-mart after work" or "the Kmart".
>
To drift further, I think something else is going on with the last
example. The determinator is used to point out a specific member of the
group Kmarts.
When someone says "I'm going to THE Kmart", he or she refers to a
specific Kmart, the one around the corner. As in: "Where are you going?"
- "I'm going to the shop where I always go to" = "I'm going to the
Kmart"
This differs from the categorical: "To get groceries I go to Kmart, to
get a burger to McDonalds"

just my 0.20 Dutch Guilders.

Jeroen Hendrix
Technical Communications
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