Friday Anteater Blogging – A Grammar Lesson

Posted on November 24, 2006 in Xenartha

This came from an article in The Oregonian:

Ernest Miller shared some childhood flashbacks about the word the.

“When I was in elementary school we were taught proper use of the word the. By that I mean that whenever the word the was followed by a word beginning with a vowel it was to be pronounced thee (instead of thu).

“If I was talking about something, such as an animal, the first letter of the name of the animal determined how the word the would be pronounced.

“For example, if the name of the animal was anteater the correct usage would be, ‘I saw thee anteater in the (thu) tree, not the (thu) anteater in the (thu) tree.’

“This rule only applies to the pronunciation of the word the, and not the spelling of the word.

“All the so-called educated people, such as newscasters . . . always mispronounce the word the as it relates to the first letter of the word following.”

Who needs cat or squid blogging when anteaters combine the best qualities of both?