Grammatical Pet Peeve

[RobRoy]

Personally I hate the "The". At worst it is pretentious. At best it is just silly.

If you asked a current marching member, "Did you march?", would they say, "Yes, I was a The Cadets in 2005"?. Or "I was a The Caviliers"?

[Lance]

Hmmmm, not sure about your reasoning there. I assume you have no problem with "Phantom Regiment, you may blah blah blah...". Wouldn't it sound equally silly if somebody said "I was a Phantom Regiment last year" as if they said "I was a The Cavaliers last year"? The silliness in both cases comes not from the name of the unit, but from incorrect syntax and semantics.

Anyhoo, lots of things that sound strange are, nevertheless, gramatically correct. :)

[usmpiano]

>>>The unit is called "The Cadets." It is treated as a single group, and its referent pronoun should agree in number. Of course, that's the great thing about "you." It can be used in the singular or plural case--singular in the sense of "you", individually, or plural in the sense of "you all" as a group.

>>>So, "The Cadets, you may blah blah blah" is 100% correct.

"THE CADETS" and "THE CAVALIERS" are the names of the groups, and should be addressed as such.

[Lance]

I think that's what I said.

[Tsar Nikk]

"THE CADETS" and "THE CAVALIERS" are the names of the groups, and should be addressed as such.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Regardless, I think it's silly. Listening to the old Finals broadcasts, it sounds an awful lot better when they dropped the "The."

Still, in the grand scheme of things, it's not important...if THAT is how the organizations want to be called, then no problem.

(But I can still think it silly :P )