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A'the'ism

Separate but related movement of those against use of that word.
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It's possible that a lot of confusion in our world has been caused by a common error of speech. Referring to things with a certain definite article implies quite a lot, and things would be much improved if things were not referred to in this way.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with words that start with or include 'the', but constant grammatical usage of this concept creates an underlying cognitive structural cosmology that makes everyone think there really is a 'the' when in actuality there simply is not.

A'the'ists find a positive statistical correlation between societies with a lot of significant proper nouns and high religiosity. For example: the prophet, the church, the bible, the bloodshed. Whereas societies that refer to things in a very general nonspecific sense, such as a'the'ist community members, have low religiosity. For example: a turnip, that thing, your foot odour, an article, etc.

At first it is hard to live without 'the', but soon you and people around you will adapt to indefinite language. Whereas before one would say "the door is open", which would lead a reciever to assume a highly regarded door is open, this would now be spoken "a door is open", which will lead a speaker to inquire "which door?", wherupon one would answer "a highly regarded door", or something relative to any one of any possible doors that might refer to.

This type of amendment would amount to a great change in world social history bringing a new age of equality. No longer would notable people be held to greater esteem, than common people. Democratic institutions would benefit also. A President of United States would give a speech from a white house. Of course without definite articles, some unnecessary proper nouns like 'Whitehouse' would also be on a'the'ist chopping blocks.

Ultimately, this simple although profound language change will have drastic effects. Primarily, people's perceptions will no longer be deluded by the existence of 'the', as a cosmological location which in theory is only a grammatical convenience that causes widespread ritualism, violence , and specificity in its ultimate psychological manifestation as an all powerful and commanding god.

rcarty, Sep 25 2013

Agnostic vs Atheist http://www.diffen.c...Agnostic_vs_Atheist
Note: the is not part of the definition of A Theist [popbottle, Sep 25 2013]

The The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_The
This band would have to change their name. [Zeuxis, Sep 25 2013]

[link]






       a has caused me to misstep a bit: I always thought a meant "without regard to" rather than "not", like "asymmetrical" would include "symmetrical" as a specific subset, which it doesn't; broken clock twice a day and all that.   

       At which point I find myself without a proper prefix.   

       of course "at heists" is another possible translation.
FlyingToaster, Sep 25 2013
  

       There are still some "definite" words available, such as, for example, "THAT door is open".
Vernon, Sep 25 2013
  

       Yes, doesn't have the same strutural effect on cognition as THE.
rcarty, Sep 25 2013
  

       Of course the most common translation is "ATMism".
FlyingToaster, Sep 25 2013
  

       Auomated teller machine, at the moment?
rcarty, Sep 25 2013
  

       What about being Psycho the rapist?
AusCan531, Sep 25 2013
  

       There's always being Arrested Development's analyst therapist, or in short, anal-rapist   

       But that is really here nor there, we should really be intensly discussing the possibility that theists conspired to insert 'the' as a part of speech as a strategy to achieve end goals. Allow me to begin - I think so.
rcarty, Sep 25 2013
  

       But how will we differentiate between all the different hagues?
theleopard, Sep 25 2013
  

       If there exists a set of Hagues {A Hague, Another Hague, Hague 9, Hague-on-the-Wold, Hartley-Hague} then reference to any specific Hague remains possible as long as elements of this set remain uniquely referable. The problem comes when multiple Hagues are all named and/or located in the same place such that they become indistinguishable - at which point, they might as well be one and the same.
Zeuxis, Sep 25 2013
  

       //A'the'ists find a positive statistical correlation between societies with a lot of significant proper nouns and high religiosity. //   

       Where do they find this statistical correlation? Not in any actual statistics, I'll tell you that much. I won't bore you with the counter-examples, unless provoked.
pertinax, Sep 25 2013
  

       Of course the defining attribute of The Hagues is how much scotch went into the cook during preparation.
FlyingToaster, Sep 25 2013
  

       I think its an offensive epithet towards women
rcarty, Sep 25 2013
  

       I am not opposed to The, I am simply certain that The does not exist.
Alterother, Sep 25 2013
  

       //Of course the defining attribute of The Hagues//   

       Sitcom idea: William's wife gets increasingly jealous of his "work trips" to Africa with Angelina Jolie. Decides to bring the kids to Somalia to crash the UN's next war-crimes awareness push.   

       Hmmm. Perhaps not an awful lot of com in that, and rather too much sit.
theleopard, Sep 25 2013
  

       In one funny scene in particular she overhears her husband has bought a new suit of clothes and has been spending quite a lot on visiting the Hague, on hotels and so forth. She even hears there is more than one Hague, and because of ongoing war crimes investigations she doesn't know about that a lot of dicks go in and out of the front and back entrances of that one particular Hague all the time. Coming and going, as it were, often at once, or one right after the other.   

       Eventually she finds a hastily scrawled note with 'special lie' scratched out and a phone number for someone called the 'ass s lut' . She calls the number and a female voice answers and she says, "listen hag, I don't know who goes around with the name ass slut, but stay away from my husband or I'm going to kill you". The assistant special lieutenant to the secretary general of the united nations was not impressed.
rcarty, Sep 25 2013
  

       // A President of United States would give a speech from a white house.//   

       Well, I have to admit, I like this idea. It may be the Pinot Grigio talking (the second bottle is always very chatty), but my previous opinion of [rcarty] as a no- hope rambling pseudo-esoteric cod-philosphising unfocussed ball of background radiation has been ver y considerably overturned.
MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 25 2013
  

       The the object is reducible to the proof that the obect is a object.   

       I proposeth this theorem on this day, signeth
rcarty, Sep 25 2013
  

       Can I commend to you the novel "Gadsby"? It is completely devoid of a word "the".   

       (In fact, it is lacking totally in that symbol which, along with "t" and "h" is found in that particular word. How any author can construct a book lacking that vital symbol is puzzling to I.)
MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 25 2013
  

       Incidentally, creating sentences where every element includes the letter "e" proves extremely challenging. There are few sufficiently adept.
MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 25 2013
  

       This theorem relates that the object can't completely be removed from a object.   

       However, the the object signifies the idea of the.   

       The the object can't completely be removed because it is a object that signifies the.   

       The object that signifies the can be removed but definite allusion to the article cannot be removed from any media object.
rcarty, Sep 25 2013
  

       // There are few sufficiently adept.//   

       Really? Meh.
pertinax, Sep 29 2013
  

       He doesn't mean everything he tells others. When he lies he writes sentences. When he speaks honestly he doesn't. He smells like rotten eggs combined together inside urine.
rcarty, Sep 29 2013
  

       All right, enough: let's check this idea against a few facts.   

       If we look around present-day Europe, it is one of the least religious parts of the world. Its elites may be corrupt, self-indulgent and indecisive, but they're not religious. Also, compared to other parts of the world, present-day Europe scores *relatively* well on diversity, democracy and the absence of ritualized violence. One notable exception stands out though, namely, Russia. Russia's basically hierarchical, monolithic structure, with a national church closely tied to an authoritarian government, carries on a cultural tradition that goes back for centuries. Russia is the only European country I know of where educated people still refer to Africans as monkeys, and, whereas Western Europeans have tensions with ethno-religious minorities, these tensions are nothing like the near-genocidal wars in and around Chechnya.   

       And why is this significant? Well, Russian is the only major* modern European language which has no word for "the". In other words, it is the only major example in modern Europe of A'the'ism in practice.   

       Is this too Eurocentric for you?   

       All right, let's cast our eyes over the Umma of Islam. Now, at first sight, we note that the classical Arabic of the Quran not only has a definite article ("al"), but likes it so much that many Arab words arrive in English with their article rusted on - "algebra", "alcohol" and, of course "Allah". To this point, it all looks like grist to [rcarty]'s mill. But wait. There's more than one language in the Islamic world. To make this next comparison more colourful, I offer you this extract from a speech of Gladstone, in response to some atrocities in Bulgaria, in which he explains that his condemnation is not of Islam, but of a more specific group:   

       "Let me endeavour, very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mohammedanism simply, but of Mohammedanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mohammedans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization vanished from view. "   

       Now this, of course, is the exaggeration of a politician making a polemical point, but it contains an element of truth; for some centuries, most of the practical oppression of ethno-religious minorities in the Western part of the Islamic world was done not by Arabic-speakers, but by Turks. And yes, you've guessed it; Turkish has no word for "the".   

       Have we confined ourselves unduly to the last half-millennium of history? Inevitably, we wheel out the Greeks and Romans. Classical Greece - say, from the end of the Geometric Period in 700 BC to the death of Alexander in 323 BC- very diverse, creative, argumentative - plenty of conflict, but virtually none of it religious. Classical Rome - say, from 202 BC to 68 AD - always quite unequal and hierarchical, becoming more so over the period, and less democratic - moderate levels of religious persecution, from the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus of 186 BC through to Nero's Christian-bashing. The punchline, of course, is that classical Latin does *not* have a "the", while classical Greek does.   

       I could go on.   

       There's easily enough here to slap this idea with an MFD - bad science (comparative philology).   

       On the other hand, given that this idea is entirely innocent of any direct association with reality, it is worth pondering where it comes from...   

       *Sorry, Poland.
pertinax, Oct 02 2013
  

       It doesn't come from comparative ethnography, it's a halfbaked idea, one that has some funny surface humour, stands up against a little cirtical analysis, but really is not serious enougha and doesn't come from serious enough thought to be subject to rigorous critique. It's a joke in some ways about being offended by 'the', like how someone will use 'the' as an intensifier to make something seem better or more important than what it is.   

       But to misunderstand the idea and take it seriously, could be entertained. It stands up to some analysis, and certainly what you have offered is by no means the last word on the subject. If seriously defending the idea I would look for specific instances of where "The" is used in order to structure reality and not just grammar, and how people would react if an effort was made to change that, and thus their cosmology of the world. For example a survey of monarchists in Britian who wanted QE2 to be considered just a queen, a defender of a faith etc. But I hypothesize they would oppose this 'dimunition' because religiosity depends on believing in absolute and ultimate objects represented by The, or a laboratory study where two goups are given text to read with 'the' and without 'the' and after reading the text to answer a survey about how important the writing was, how true did it seem, how important the subject was etc. Even measuring conflict in grad students given 'prepared' writing samples and asked to edit and measure how vigorousl they apply edits and defend ' The' and then correlate that with another result on that particular subject's religiosity, or how devotion to The is related to self aggrandisement, and how those who use The in describing their own social lives are status searchers and typically have higher social status in higher or lower status circles.
rcarty, Oct 02 2013
  

       Just say it with an Israeli accent. We can't say th and replace it with T. Also we read an A at the begining of a word as Ah, and find it hard to articulate the vowel sound of aye (like hay or day, we pronounce those words heh and deh).
pashute, Jun 29 2021
  
      
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