Comment by 9rx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 9rx | Hacker News Reader

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> "The Ukraine" is incorrect both grammatically

That doesn't really make any sense. There is no magical deity that arbitrates rules of English. It is merely a tool invented by humans to use as they please. The only semblance of "incorrectness" that might be found is in failing to communicate with the reader, but in this case you clearly had no trouble understanding what "the Ukraine" meant and I suspect nobody else has either.

> and politically

This makes more sense and is a much stronger point, but political correctness is bound to intent. There is no evidence I can see that suggests "the Ukraine" was previously used with intent to offend or marginalize the people of Ukraine. Even if "the Ukraine" can be used as a politically incorrect device, that does not imply that all usage is politically incorrect.

> It’s called Ukraine.

Officially that is true, but there is typically nothing official about a casual comment made on Hacker News. As before, context is significant, and there is nothing in the context that I can see that suggests that the comment was made in some kind of official capacity.

"The Ukraine" is grammatically incorrect for the same reason "the England" is grammatically incorrect. An article doesn't go there.

The politically incorrect usage here is not bound to intent, because unaware readers will subconsciously lower Ukraine's status in their minds regardless of whether the writer intended them to do so.

The official status, or lack thereof, of the comment doesn't matter either. There is no compelling reason to not use the accepted name. If your friend was called James, would you intentionally call him "the James" just because you're not making an official statement? That doesn't make any sense.

> "The Ukraine" is grammatically incorrect for the same reason "the England" is grammatically incorrect.

It is grammatically atypical, perhaps, but not incorrect. It is fundamentally impossible to use English 'incorrectly'. The closest you can get to any semblance of 'incorrectness' is failing to communicate with the reader. But that is certainly not the case here. Everyone is well aware that in the above comment 'the Ukraine' refers to Ukraine.

> The politically incorrect usage here is not bound to intent, because unaware readers will subconsciously lower Ukraine's status in their minds regardless of whether the writer intended them to do so.

A faulty lowering of Ukraine's status may be politically incorrect, but the words are not to blame. That's your fault for thinking about its status improperly. There is no onus on the writer to worry about a failing mind. If there were, communication would be out of the question.

> If your friend was called James, would you intentionally call him "the James" just because you're not making an official statement?

I personally would not be intentional when writing casually. That defeats the purpose of writing casually. If I happened to put "the" down on paper I certainly wouldn't put in the effort to remove it. Who cares? Assuming the context is otherwise clear, nobody is going to be confused about who "the James" is.

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