Subj : Earth or the Earth To : alexander koryagin From : Roy Witt Date : Sat Mar 03 2018 08:24:55 29 Jun 12 22:08, alexander koryagin wrote to Roy Witt: RW>> If you're speaking of the Earth as a subject, it is a noun and a RW>> capital E is supposed to be used. Meanwhile earth with a small case RW>> e may be just plain old dirt in a sentence like: "the earth shook RW>> for several minutes" ak> I looked at the article about "earth" in my dictionary (Longman), and ak> it says: ak> =========Beginning of the citation============== ak> earth [transcription] 1 (the) uncountable (often cap.) the world on ak> which we live: They return successfully from the moon to (the) Earth. ak> =========The end of the citation================ see (often cap), whichmeans that the word is often capitalized. ak> Most likely, it all means that there is not any rule on this account, ak> and using "the" before Earth is optional. Well, indeed, it is very ak> probably. After all, Englishmen don't use definite articles before ak> names. And when we write "Earth" we imply that it is a name of the ak> planet. Technically, there is no any need to use a definite article. I think the use of 'the' before the word earth would mean that the subject is the Earth and not the earth we know is dirt... ak> In general situation is funny. Englishmen think that Mars, Jupiter, ak> etc are planet names. That is why they don't use "the" before them. Using The before Mars and Jupiter would be like speaking of those planets out of context. But if one were to use 'the' to speak of those planets as in "The planet Mars", then it would seem to be in a better context than not. ak> But when they speak of the sun, the moon, the e(E)arth it doesn't ak> look that we have deal with names. And many people use "the" despite ak> the fact that each of the mentioned objects are unique. Or we could use 'the' in such a context as I outlined above. The Solar Sytem Sun or the Earth's satellite Moon... R\%/itt .... besides, IMNSHO, Ward Dossche should resign as ZC2 and surrender his .... net node-number to the ZCC ! - Cato the Elder - .... Reminder: .... On Friday September 8th 2006, Mike Godwin's 16 year experiment was .... concluded and Godwin's Law was officially repealed by a popular vote .... among millions of individuals. .... http://repealgodwin.tripod.com/ --- Twit(t) Filter v2.1 (C) 2000-10 * Origin: Roiz Flying \A/ Service * South Texas * USA * (1:387/22) .