grammar girl here. Several times on this podcast we've talked about the word

the. In episode 222 we said that usually the definite article doesn't go with

proper nouns. That's why my friends and family call me minion and not the minion.

For some proper nouns though it's not so clear. Why do we have the velvet

underground but not the Led Zeppelin? And are the reasons for shortening the

Ukraine and the Congo to just Ukraine and Congo? The same reasons that some

journalists are reporting on Central African Republic? Stay tuned as we take a

closer look at the word the and how it behaves with bands, brands and foreign

lands. A general rule about band names and the definite article is that plural

band names that suggest that they refer to the individual band members tend to

get a thought. It's easiest to explain with an example. Let's take the nominal

phrase exploding pickle. Now suppose that squiggly ardvarkin fencer have

formed a band and named it the exploding pickles. This name suggests that

squiggly is an exploding pickle as our ardvarkin fencer. Not literally of

course but in a figurative way. We have to redefine the phrase exploding pickle

so that it means any member of the set made up of squiggly ardvarkin fencer.

The definite article emphasizes that these are the only exploding pickles. This

rule also explains why speakers tend to add the to some band names that don't

already have it but not to others. Article-free band names such as eagles and

talking heads began to appear in the 1970s but these bands and later ones

such as red hot chili peppers often end up with a the in front of their name

anyway because you imagine that each member of these bands is an eagle a

...