Re: Definite article "the"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pozitivo 
First of all, I want to say hello to other members of this forum! This is my first posting here and "the switch" for to it was caused by a dilemma in which I found myself while I was thinking about the proper use of the definite article "the"! And I know that (is) by the grammar rule, the definite article "the" shouldn't be used before the names of cities, countries, lakes and so on, but that's contradictory in some cases such as in the few sentence examples sentences below:
"Exploring the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland with light aircraft, the Cessna Skyhawk SP Model 172 light aircraft".
"Exploring the Canada with the light aircraft Maule M-7-260C Orion".
"Exploring the Caribbean region with the seaplane de Havilland DHC–2 Beaver".
So, I'm wondering whether those sentence examples are just exceptions from the grammar rule or not!? And I'd like to hear other opinions on this topic because articles (in this case definite) are present in many sentences.
Welcome to the forum.
You'll notice that I have made some suggestions about your original question. This is not meant as criticism; it's mean to be helpful.
We do not use the definite article with the names of countries - unless the name is in fact a description of the nature of the country. So:
Great Britain but the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
America but the United States of America
Canada but the Dominion of Canada.
Even apparent exceptions are often not exceptions. The Netherlands, for example has the because the name meant originally the low countries.
Re: Definite article "the"
Thanks for the welcome!
Also, thank you very much on correcting my previous question... Criticism or not, it's helpful for sure. I understood it with ease and it's clear now when to use the definite article "the" before the names of cities, countries... :-)
