Subj : Strange a bit
To   : Gleb Hlebov
From : Alexander Koryagin
Date : Fri Sep 27 2024 16:04:10


Hi, Gleb Hlebov!
I read your message from 27.09.2024 08:53

 AK>>> If Miln had put it with a capital first letter it was rather a
 AK>>> name.
 GH>> It seems at first it was a denotation and a name at the same time.
 GH>> The writer was introducing "The Piglet" as an "object" in the
 GH>> story in the course of 2-3 sentences, and then it actually settled
 GH>> in as a personal name.

However the reason could be the same as for "the King" ;-)

 GH> Have you heard an idiom "Keeping up with the Joneses"?
 GH> As I've mentioned earlier, English articles are quite an
 GH> interesting subject to study per se, and speaking of it in regard
 GH> to its usage with names and proper nouns, here's some info that
 GH> might help us:

 GH> =====
 GH> More generally, using an article before a proper noun that doesn't
 GH> have one built into it (as the United States and the Rolling Stones
 GH> do) is one example of using a proper noun as a countable noun.

 GH> There are several reasons why we might do that normally. One is to
 GH> say something like "there are three Johns in the group",
 GH> meaning "there are three people called John in the group".

It is not an example of article using -- No article. Although... even a fist can serve as zero when we use fingers to tell the result of 5 minus 5. ;-)

 GH> Another is to add distance to the identification; "I have a John
 GH> Smith on the line" is a common expression for "I have someone on
 GH> the line, who tells me he is John Smith, and that is all that is
 GH> known about him". A similar is to report, e.g. "One John Smith is
 GH> accused of the crime", emphasising that we have no further
 GH> identifying details at present, and hence we are not stating
 GH> precisely which person of that name is the subject of the sentence.

Probably there is no similar name in Russian. Although we can say that in Russia there many Putins (people with "Putin" as a second name). Can you imagine how feels a teacher when she is saying "Putin, stop babbling!" ;-)

 GH> Another is to use a proper noun as an example of particular traits
 GH> that could also be held by others (a type of synecdoche). "The next
 GH> Bob Dylan" (a singer-songwriter from the folk scene who will repeat
 GH> Dylan's success), "He's an Einstein" (he's very smart), "All
 GH> Mozarts have their Salieris" (not really true even for Mozart and
 GH> Salieri, but let's say we believed the film Amadeus was accurate).

Yeah, some politicians, for instance, can act as a Napoleon.

 GH> Another, almost inverse to this, is to speak of the person or thing
 GH> signified by the proper noun at a particular time, or from a
 GH> particular perspective: "The London of a hundred years ago was a
 GH> notoriously unhealthy place", "The John you know is not the John I
 GH> know" (that could also mean you are talking of a literally
 GH> different person, depending on context).
 GH> The above are reasonably standard, though figurative.

Well, it is not very unusual. We can say for instance about the Moscow of 193s.

 GH> Another common variation is to jokingly make use of these forms,
 GH> when one normally would not. If talking of a friend, we would
 GH> generally use their name as a proper noun, because that's how names
 GH> work in English, but since every person called George is "a
 GH> George", and so on the form is logically correct, though not
 GH> strictly good English. To use it of a friend could suggest that you
 GH> have gotten as far as knowing it's a George, but not which one, or
 GH> that George's are all alike and you've hence found someone who will
 GH> have all the George-like qualities that George has. Both obviously
 GH> are not sensible, but therein is the joke. Another variant would be
 GH> if you were looking for George, and then spotted him. Again "ah,
 GH> there's a George" would suggest that you'd were just looking for
 GH> Georges generally, which again is not sensible, hence the joke.

Probably if we add "a" to the name we lift the person status. This person (his name) becomes like a benchmark.

 GH> All of these last cases are examples of deliberately bad English,
 GH> used as a joke, rather than something that would normally be
 GH> considered correct.

It seems to me they are not bad English, but they reflect its flexibility.

 GH> [A completely different case is when there's a word that is the
 GH> same as a proper noun, but isn't a proper noun, of which some slang
 GH> cases started as a proper noun and are hence sometimes
 GH> capitalised.]

In short "the Piglet" is in capital may be for this reason -- it was the only little swine in this novel. ;-) A capital letter was rewarded to him probably because they called him "piglet", and it became a proper name. It was the only piglet in the story. In Russia we have a fairy-tale about three piglets and a wolf. In our case every piglet has a personal name. ;)

Bye, Gleb!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2024

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