On Apr 15, 2009, at 2:47 PM, joseph noonan wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Apr 2009, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>>
>>
>> My friend, who passed away at a young age, always called Foucault,
>> The
>> Foucault. Not with any special emphasis on "the" or anything.
>
> Is this in the same sense as the East Coast working class use of the
> definite article when referring to disease? You know: "I've got the
> diabetes" or "poor old Mrs. Hannigan has got the cancer"?
>
> What is up with that anyway?
And why do people in LA always call a highway by "the" followed by its route number - "The 10," "The 405"?
Doug