I saw it on the Facebook

[Viktor77]

Why do people unfamiliar with a new product (the majority of whom are older people), use a definite article with an unfamiliar product?

[brandrinn]

I feel more comfortable talking about unfamiliar things sometimes with a definite article. It somehow presents the noun more carefully. Which of these people, for example, do you think flies out Dorfenfutter more often, the one who calls it "The Dorfenfutter International Airport," or the one who calls it "Dorfenfutter International Airport?" I think it has less to do with age and technology, and more to do with cautious over-engineering of phrases when the speaker is not confident about the topic.

[clawgrip]

Maybe because physical appliances and devices generally take 'the' (the oven, the phone, the computer, the radio, (the) TV, the car, the DVD player (and even the Internet)), so people who are not familiar with linguistic conventions for software and websites, a higher proportion of whom are probably older, simply apply this pattern inappropriately?

I can't help but be reminded of the Simpsons: "You see, the kids these days, they listen to the rap music, which gives them the brain damage."

[Torco]

they haven't had the corporate-brainwashing into thinking the product has the characteristic of a category; the facebook, for example, is just one of the most common amongst the social network, it is not the social network however, all us the current generation act like it was, and others of the social networking sites are not actual social networks in the imaginary of us, but rather, niche thingamajigs. similarly, the google is a sort of the engine of the search, it is not THE search engine.

[seriously, its most likely trying to sound like you're familiar with the thing, you know which facebook everyone is talking about, so you use the pronoun that demonstrates you're familiar with the thing you're talking about; the definite one]

[Melteor]

Why do people unfamiliar with a new product (the majority of whom are older people), use a definite article with an unfamiliar product?

I don't know, but it has the feel of a phenomena or thing, e.g. the flu. Maybe it's "I saw it on the "face-book."" lol like its not really a name but a thing. It sets it up against all other things but on an equal basis (so like 'facebook' is a tag? It's an unstructured sort of thing, I feel.)

I can't help but be reminded of the Simpsons: "You see, the kids these days, they listen to the rap music, which gives them the brain damage."

Makes it sound like children are brain-damaged as a matter of course.

He's got the consumption!

also it's e.g., not i.e.

think of e.g. as "for example" and i.e. as "in other words"

I've needed an abbreviation for 'in other words' for quite awhile now lol thx

[clawgrip]

He's got the consumption!

also it's e.g., not i.e.

think of e.g. as "for example" and i.e. as "in other words"

[Radius Solis]

Proper nouns in English have no general rule for whether they do or don't take the definite article - many do and many don't. On the "don't" side we have Mars, China, and Wikipedia; on the "do" side we have the Moon, the Czech Republic, and the Internet. Certain classes of thing always do or don't - people's names don't, newspaper names do - but websites are not necessarily always in the "don't" set.

Meanwhile "facebook" has a property many other proper nouns don't - it looks analyzable into a two-word phrase, which in its default usage (meaning e.g. a book about faces) would obviously require an article. This makes it more vulnerable to uncertainty about dropping the article.

[clawgrip]

Proper nouns in English have no general rule for whether they do or don't take the definite article - many do and many don't. On the "don't" side we have Mars, China, and Wikipedia; on the "do" side we have the Moon, the Czech Republic, and the Internet. Certain classes of thing always do or don't - people's names don't, newspaper names do - but websites are not necessarily always in the "don't" set.

Meanwhile "facebook" has a property many other proper nouns don't - it looks analyzable into a two-word phrase, which in its default usage (meaning e.g. a book about faces) would obviously require an article. This makes it more vulnerable to uncertainty about dropping the article.

"The Czech Republic" takes 'the' because it's a regular noun ('republic') modified by a proper adjective, cf. The Russian Federation, the English Channel.
"The Internet" takes 'the' because it's simply a proper noun formed from a regular noun, cf. the Dude, the Avengers.

[Viktor77]

Proper nouns in English have no general rule for whether they do or don't take the definite article - many do and many don't. On the "don't" side we have Mars, China, and Wikipedia; on the "do" side we have the Moon, the Czech Republic, and the Internet. Certain classes of thing always do or don't - people's names don't, newspaper names do - but websites are not necessarily always in the "don't" set.

Meanwhile "facebook" has a property many other proper nouns don't - it looks analyzable into a two-word phrase, which in its default usage (meaning e.g. a book about faces) would obviously require an article. This makes it more vulnerable to uncertainty about dropping the article.

"The Czech Republic" takes 'the' because it's a regular noun ('republic') modified by a proper adjective, cf. The Russian Federation, the English Channel.
"The Internet" takes 'the' because it's simply a proper noun formed from a regular noun, cf. the Dude, the Avengers.

What about The Ukraine? Why The Ukraine but not The Hungary?

Thanks for the responses, there doesn't seem to be here a one size fits all response. Sort of a thread of hypothesizes. Oh, English....

[linguoboy]

What about The Ukraine? Why The Ukraine but not The Hungary?

Because before it was a country, the Ukraine was a region (the name literally means "borderland" or "frontier"). Now that it is the name of a country, the article is officially deprecated. Cf. Sudan.

[clawgrip]

Thanks, linguoboy, that makes sense. I had forgotten about "the Sudan". It seems that other single-word countries with 'the' have the article specifically because they are pluralized: the Netherlands, the Philippines, the Maldives.

Geographical features are a mess too:
with article: oceans, seas, rivers, peninsulas, isthmuses, valleys, mountain ranges, island chains/groups, channels, straits, coasts, deserts, jungles, swamps...
without article: lakes, bays, islands, capes, mountains, beaches, canyons, gorges, ravines...

[Gray Richardson]

A lot of people use the definite article ironically. It's a popular meme right now. Especially in internet culture. They use the article intentionally to feign unfamiliarity with a newly ubiquitous product. I'm not sure what the implication is; they are perhaps imitating an elderly person who is unfamiliar with the internet, or perhaps they are implying that they are too cool to be bothered with the pop culture that everyone else is consumed with.

[Viktor77]

A lot of people use the definite article ironically. It's a popular meme right now. Especially in internet culture. They use the article intentionally to feign unfamiliarity with a newly ubiquitous product. I'm not sure what the implication is; they are perhaps imitating an elderly person who is unfamiliar with the internet, or perhaps they are implying that they are too cool to be bothered with the pop culture that everyone else is consumed with.

Yes, even though I heard it in an original context (by an older person who almost said the Facebook then hyper-corrected themselves to Facebook), I know that this is common parody and so abundant enough to post about it.

[clawgrip]

lmost said the Facebook then hyper-corrected themselves to Facebook)

It's not hyper-correction, it's just correction, since Facebook is, well, correct.

[finlay]

Facebook's kind of an interesting example because for the first year or two of its existence it really was called "The Facebook", or rather 'thefacebook.com' (although this was well before it was opened up to the public and not just those with academic email addresses, and is kind of confined to the period when it was only available in Ivy League schools) – I think this may be in part because they couldn't get the domain 'facebook.com' at the time.

[Viktor77]

Facebook's kind of an interesting example because for the first year or two of its existence it really was called "The Facebook", or rather 'thefacebook.com' (although this was well before it was opened up to the public and not just those with academic email addresses, and is kind of confined to the period when it was only available in Ivy League schools) – I think this may be in part because they couldn't get the domain 'facebook.com' at the time.

I can't imagine who would have the domain facebook.com and what they would have been using it for.

[finlay]

Not sure, anyway it was actually "Thefacebook" with no spaces but whatever eh. Facebook.com cost them $200,000 according to the wikipedia article.

[Viktor77]

Not sure, anyway it was actually "Thefacebook" with no spaces but whatever eh. Facebook.com cost them $200,000 according to the wikipedia article.

I think that was 200 g's well spent.

If it interests you, Facebook paid 8.5 million for fb.com which belonged to the Farm Bureau. Talk about a deal for the Farm Bureau. So now you can be directed to Facebook with fb.com.

[Ghostfishe]

There's also Batman/The Batman.

This kind of situation must be a lot easier when you're speaking a language doesn't have that kind of article in the first place.

[Viktor77]

There's also Batman/The Batman.

This kind of situation must be a lot easier when you're speaking a language doesn't have that kind of article in the first place.

Yes, but there must be drawbacks to I see a chair, I see the chair, as always I see chair. I knew many Czechs but never any who would have been able to explain how they are differentiated.

[Vuvuzela]

There's also Batman/The Batman.

This kind of situation must be a lot easier when you're speaking a language doesn't have that kind of article in the first place.

Yes, but there must be drawbacks to I see a chair, I see the chair, as always I see chair. I knew many Czechs but never any who would have been able to explain how they are differentiated.

A lot of languages just do it with demonstratives (e.g.I see THAT chair.) I'm pretty sure some dialects of Vulgar Latin did it that way, because "el" and "la" are cognate with Latin "ille" and "illa", which are distal demonstratives.

[Rui]

Has anyone considered "the Facebook" might be an analogy with "the phonebook"? I think it was already mentioned that maybe they don't realize that Facebook is a brand (since you know, "facebook" is a thing), so I guess someone probably thought of that.

[Yng]

A lot of languages just do it with demonstratives (e.g.I see THAT chair.) I'm pretty sure some dialects of Vulgar Latin did it that way, because "el" and "la" are cognate with Latin "ille" and "illa", which are distal demonstratives.

Yeah. They became increasingly less marked as demonstratives and took on new grammatical meaning as articles instead. But once a language starts doing this, it's difficult to talk about them 'doing it with demonstratives'.

Yes, but there must be drawbacks to I see a chair, I see the chair, as always I see chair. I knew many Czechs but never any who would have been able to explain how they are differentiated.

do you habitually go around asking people to explain the difference between the articles

Word order is another thing that is used in place of articles.

[Melteor]

A lot of people use the definite article ironically. It's a popular meme right now. Especially in internet culture. They use the article intentionally to feign unfamiliarity with a newly ubiquitous product. I'm not sure what the implication is; they are perhaps imitating an elderly person who is unfamiliar with the internet, or perhaps they are implying that they are too cool to be bothered with the pop culture that everyone else is consumed with.

I'm pretty sure they're imitating this girl; at least, she brought awareness to it.

@Yng, Chibi: The demonstratives start showing up in texts a lot; heck, it really seems pretty normal because English 'that' still overlaps with 'the' it's just stylistically marked: "Have you been to that city of lights, Paris?" vs. "Have you been to the city of lights, Paris?" That would obviously be later style of usage with Latin, which probably used to use them to disambiguate, more like, "I want chair." *Gives tall chair* "No, THAT chair."