Real Life / Spell My Name With A The

Spell My Name with a "The" in real life.

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The Individuals

'Der Führer' ('the Leader' or 'the Guide') a.k.a. Adolf Hitler.
What about His Holiness, The Dalai Lama?
As well as il papa himself, The Pope.
Siyyid ʿAlí Muḥammad Shírází, the 19th century Persian religious reformer whose teachings led to the development of the Baha'i Faith, is universally referred to as "The Báb", from the Arabic word for "gate", since he was seen as opening the way for a new religious movement.
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, who was arguably the most famous monarch in the world, was universally known as the Queen.
- In the UK, and most other monarchies, only the current monarch and consort are referred to as the king and queen. If a consort is widowed, they lose the the and are referred to by their given name, e.g. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
- This is true for virtually every other title and peerage in the UK, e.g. the current holder is "The Duke of X" or "The Earl of X". The courtesy title for the incumbent's wife is "The Duchess of X" or "The Countess of X", if widowed or divorced it changes to "(First name), Duchess of X" or "(First name), Countess of X"; informally, a lord's widow is “the Dowager [title]”.
- Also in the UK, children of the monarch who are unmarried and/or don't have a title have their name preceded with "The". For example, Elizabeth went from "Princess Elizabeth of York" to "The Princess Elizabeth" after her father, previously the Duke of York, acceded to the throne (because the territorial designation from him was now the United Kingdom).
- This is probably one of the reasons why Queen Camilla was explicitly referred to as "Her Majesty The Queen Consort" instead of "Her Majesty The Queen", as was the case with all previous queens consort, until her coronation; her mother-in-law was so heavily identified with the style of "Her Majesty The Queen" that a distinction had to be made in the wake of her death. (Considering that it had been in question for many years whether she would use the style of "Queen" at all, they probably preferred to err on the side of discretion.)
Donald Trump, a.k.a. "The Donald"; his "the" is pre-presidential and was bestowed by his Czech-speaking wife Ivana. Also his brief-tenured White House Communications Director Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci
David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff.
Some American Indian names are given in this way, such as the early-19th-century Cherokee war leader The Ridge.
According to Martin Brodeur's autobiography, legendary ice hockey bust Alexandre Daigle likes to be called "The Daigle".
The painter Doménikos Theotokópoulos, who worked in Spain, was understandably known as El Greco, the Greek (though the modern Spanish word for 'Greek' is Griego; Greco is good Italian).
Bill Murray tells a story about calling to accept an invitation for a pro-am golf tournament, and being asked "Are you THE Bill Murray?" and replying "Well, I'm A Bill Murray." When he shows up without his packet and badge and the guard won't let him in, he talks the guard into calling the director to tell her that Bill Murray's at the gate, and she shoots back "Is it A Bill Murray?"
El Cid (a Spanish term with an Arabic etymology) is almost always called El Cid or the Cid. It translates to The Master.
Actor/Comedian The Greg Wilson, known for bit parts in Ugly Betty, Modern Family, Bones, and The Hottie and the Nottie. Following the furore caused by his being caught plagiarizing another comedian on America's Got Talent, however, he's largely dropped that moniker in favor of just Greg Wilson, or Greg Romero Wilson.
Partisan leaders in the Peninsular War were frequently known by titles beginning "El", such as "El Empecinado" (The Undaunted) and "El Médico" (The Doctor... probably not that one).
Hieronymus Bosch (whose surname derives from the Dutch city of Den Bosch—see below) is known in Spanish as "El Bosco", which is a Spanish translation of "Den Bosch" or "The Forest".
French uses definite articles with a few Renaissance painters, such as le Caravage (Caravaggio) and le Tintoret (Tintoretto).
Typically used for the heads of clans ( the "Chief of the Name") in the old Gaelic world:
- The chief of a Scots clan will usually refer to himself or herself in this way: the chief of Clan Cameron, for instance, is "the Cameron" (or, more formally, "the Cameron of Lochiel", Lochiel being the Camerons' ancestral home). If a chiefship descends to someone who doesn't have the clan's name as their surname — say, to the child of a woman who married outside the clan — the new chief will not be formally recognized as such unless he or she adopts the name. Perhaps the most famous example is Robert the Bruce.
- Similarly, the eldest male in an Irish family will sometimes be called "The X". So, the patriarch of a family called Egan might be called "The Egan". This is a remnant of the old chieftainship of the fine, or clan. In Irish, the surname was used alone, in English, "the" was added (e.g. Ua Rathghaille became The O'Rahilly). In Irish, "The [Lastname]" can also be used conversationally to refer to anyone.
The Public Universal Friend, although born with a more conventional name, was a Quaker born in New England in 1752 who contracted what is believed to be typhoid at the age of 24 and claimed to have experienced a vision from God in the process. Believing that the person they were born as had died, they self-identified as genderless and legally renamed themself "the Public Universal Friend" (or simply "the Friend" for short).
Liz Truss and Sajid Javid weren't even prime minister at the time — they were only members of the British cabinet — but nevertheless they combined this trope with Third-Person Person in 2019 by calling themselves "The Truss" and "The Saj", respectively.

The Personal names generally

Using this trope for first names is not uncommon, cross-linguistically.
- It's canon in Modern Greek, among many other languages. Ancient Greek also could use an article with a name, especially if the named was famous ('the Socrates').
- It's the same in Portuguese: "O Manoel foi à loja". Also while people use to call their parents "Mom" and "Dad" in English it's usual to call them "O pai" ou "A mãe" (the father, the mother). Like in "O pai perguntou que horas você chega em casa" (The father asked what time you'll get home". When you're talking to someone, you drop the "the" from that person's name.
- Similarly, this is the rule in Catalan, except for some western dialects. For example, "La Maria va anar a la botiga ahir" (The Maria went to the store yesterday), not just "Maria" (except when addressing her directly). There is even a special subset of "personal articles" en, na and n' for names, used especially frequently in the Balearic dialects.
- Some dialects of Italian are somewhat weird about first names: the article before is considered canon only for female first names. While the construction is identical (and it is often used informally) it's considered a grammatical error to use it before male names. Using articles for first names is typical of northern dialects rather than the general language. For last names the use is more general, and almost only used for women.
- In the informal Spanish of various countries, people are often referred to with the definite article — "El Manuel fue a la tienda" ("The Manuel went to the store") is a perfectly valid sentence, albeit technically incorrect grammatically.
  - Many Mexican apodos start with "El" or "La."
- Spoken non-formal German (varying a bit by region) often uses the definitive article together with names (first, family, and full): "die Marie", "der/die [Herr/Frau] Schmidt", "die Marie Schmidt". It's also common as 'standard usage' in various German dialects (sometimes with added inversion of family and first name). Additionally, the article can be used with famous people.
- "Le / La + first name" also works in French, though it's not considered "standard".
  - Similarly, "Le / La + surname or nickname" is sometimes seen as a sobriquet for a notable person. This applies not only to French but other European languages; for example, Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida was sometimes nicknamed "La Lollo".
  - It can sometimes be used to imply sarcastically that a person thinks they're notable.
- In Hungarian, using "a", the equivalent of "the", before names ("a Tibor, a Klára") was originally considered rude, but lately it seems to be becoming prevalent in all but the most formal of situations.
- In fact, the cross-linguistic frequency of occurrence, combined with the fact that nouns have to have determiners in most formal models of syntax, and the fact that we can use an explicit determiner in rare cases in English (e.g. "The James who I met at the party yesterday must have been the same James you met last weekend."; also, the humor in the Bill Murray quote depends on knowledge of the pragmatics of usage of the explicit determiner), has led linguists to posit a special "before-proper-nouns null determiner". In other words, everyone is using an equivalent of the word "the" before proper nouns; it's just that the pronunciation of it is nothing at all.

The Geography

There are several countries like this, including:
- names that include the form of government: the United Kingdom, the Dominican Republic;
- names that are plural: the United States, the Netherlands, and island groups such as the Philippines or the Maldives;
- specific cases such as The Gambia and the Congo, some of which are optional (the Sudan), deprecated (the Ukraine), or obsolete (the Lebanon).
- And subverting this: despite being the Ukraine in the popular mind due to 19th century translations ("Ukrayina" derives from a term for "Borderland"), the country is officially merely "Ukraine." While the Ukrainian language had no articles, the Ukrainian translators just assumed you were supposed to put one in English. "The" has been falling out of usage as of late, with "Ukraine" gaining popularity, and the country's government asks English speakers not to use the article.
  - Similar things have happened to (the) Crimea.
- It is an integral part of the name of The Bahamas and The Gambia (it should always be capitalized in these instances).
Some countries take a definite article in Arabic. These are not always the same ones that take a definite article in English. Iraq, for example, is literally al-ʿIrāq, "the Iraq." This is also the reason (the) Sudan takes the definite article: in Arabic (the language of most Sudanese), it's al-Suudaan, "the Sudan", with "Sudan" meaning "Land of the Blacks" (since the Sudanese are for the most part Black).
- And it's not just Arab countries that get this weirdness: Austria is al-Nimsaa (from Niemcy, a common Slavic name for German-speakers; it probably came from South Slavic via Turkish); there's also Mexico, which is al-Maksīk and Argentina, which is al-Arjentīn.
In certain dialects of Spanish, such as Argentinian and Peruvian, some countries are named with a definite article, such as la Argentina, el Perú, el Japón (Japan), el Canadá, etc. On the other hand, other dialects, like the Mexican one, avoid this like a plague, since it's considered outdated. One of the few countries that takes an article in most dialects (other than plurals or forms of government as in English) is la India, although it's starting to fall into disuse in some circles.
- In Spanish, cities in general don't take definite articles, but many cities have them as part of their names, including many that have been borrowed into English:
  - El: masculine singular, as in El Cerrito ('the Little Hill') in the San Francisco Bay Area, El Camino Real ('the Royal Road') throughout California, El Centro in southeastern California, El Paso ('the Pass') in Texas (although the pass in question is actually across the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juarez).
  - Los: masculine plural, as in Los Angeles ('the Angels', truncated from a long name containing de la Reina de los Ángeles = of the Queen of the Angels, i.e. the Virgin Mary) in SoCal and Los Baños ('the Baths', after a creek used for bathing) in the San Joaquin Valley.
  - Los Lunas, New Mexico is named for the Luna family, not the celestial object, hence the masculine form.
  - Los Feliz (a part of Los Angeles) is named for a Feliz family; los Felices would be "the happy ones".
  - La: feminine singular, as in La Jolla (properly la Joya, 'the jewel'), a neighborhood in San Diego, California.
  - The Spanish name for Havana is La Habana, but "Habana" was already the Taino language name for the native settlement in that location, so the Spanish form basically amounts to "The Havana".
  - Las: feminine plural, as in Las Vegas ('the Plains'), Nevada, and Las Cruces ('the Crosses'), New Mexico.
In French, most countries take articles, as do most Canadian provinces and American states: la France, le Japon, le Québec, la Virginie, et cetera. Exceptions tend to be islands (Cuba) and city-states (Singapour), but there are, inevitably, exceptions to the exceptions (la Jamaïque). A few cities also have articles, as a matter of long usage: Le Caire (Cairo), La Mecque (Mecca), Le Mans, Le Havre, and La Haye (The Hague) are examples, as are certain neighbourhoods such as les Halles and les Gobelins (Paris) and le Plateau and le Mile End (Montreal). Note that these articles are treated like normal articles, so "I come from Le Havre" is Je viens du Havre.
Speaking of les Pays-Bas, in Dutch you also find a number of persons and places which feature definite articles, such as "De" (e.g., in the surname De Jong) or "Het" (as in the palace Het Loo), the latter occasionally shortened to "'t". Sometimes the article will be inflected in ways that have fallen from use outside the field of name, e.g. to "Den" as in Den Haag (The Hague) or Den Bosch. Occasionally you even see the article as a genitive, reduced to a little "'s", as in the full names of the last two cities, 's Gravenhage ("the Count's Wood", implying either a hedge or an enclosed land preserve) and 's Hertogenbosch ("the Duke's Forest").
Old colonial names for different countries often had this, as they were often seen as regions that were expanded into rather than sovereign states: "the Canadas", "the Belgian (or French) Congo", etc. Sometimes, different English-speaking countries will use these names (e.g. Argentina vs. the Argentine). As well, names like "the Americas", "the Koreas", and so forth exist when there's more than one of a country or continent, and they're both/all being referenced at once.
The country now known as North Macedonia had this trait, but in a really weird way. Before the country, known as "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" before 2019, settled its naming dispute with Greece, the UN had to make a huge number of compromises so as not to piss off anybody, and one of them involved officially sorting "the FYROM" under "The".
Canada's northwesternmost territory is officially just called Yukon, but its official name for some time was "the Yukon Territory" (named after the Yukon River that flows through it) and it's still commonly referred to as "the Yukon" in everyday speech to the point where the territorial government itself resumed using the "the" in 2021.
The Colony, Texas; The Dalles, Oregon; The Woodlands, Texas; The Pas, Manitoba.
La Center, Washington, a rare example of an English word city name with a Spanish definite article. ("La" can also be a French definite article. The "La" is odd, though, because in both Spanish and French "center" is masculine: el centro, le centre).
There's also a La Center, Kentucky, although the name is officially rendered as "LaCenter". It was named for the town's original developer, the "La Center Land Company".
- La Conner, Washington appears to use this trope, but the "La" is actually in honor of Louisa Ann Conner, an early settler.
One of the five boroughs of New York City, The Bronx (although to the United States Postal Service, it is "Bronx NY 104xx," and the county of New York State with which it is coextensive is called Bronx County). This is because the land was first owned by a Dutch family named Bronck, so people would talk about going to "the Broncks' " territory. After they moved out, the name still stuck, even after a change in spelling.
The Donway is a road in Toronto, Ontario whose numerical addresses all have the "The" at the front of "Donway". The address of Don Mills Collegiate Institute, for example, is 15 The Donway East.
- There's also The Queensway and The Esplanade. The address of St. Joseph's is 30 The Queensway.
- There is also The Alameda, San Jose, and The Embarcadero, San Francisco, California.
- Averted in London: people call the street "the Strand" but addresses just say "10 Strand."
- In French, streets take articles when they're being named in speech or writing (la rue Sainte-Catherine) but not in mailing addresses (10, rue Sainte-Catherine).
- One historic street in Richmond, Virginia is known locally as "the Boulevard", although its street signs historically read only "Boulevard". It was officially renamed Arthur Ashe Boulevard in 2019, after the African-American tennis great and social activist who was a Richmond native.
On the West Coast of the US, it is not uncommon for people to precede highway numbers with "The", e.g. "The 405" instead of just "405". This practice is especially popular in Southern California.
- One reason for this is that L.A. has an unusually high amount of similar numbers, so something like "take the 10 to the 110 to the 101" works but without the "the"s it would sound like the direction-giver was speaking binary.
- English-speaking Canadians do the same (the 401, the 20).
- In Michigan, many freeways and other important highways have locally given proper names that are used alongside or in lieu of their official alphanumeric designations, and some of them start with "the". These include "the Jeffries Freeway" or just "the Jeffries" (I-96) and "M-10 the Lodge".

The Institutions and the buildings

Can also extend to inanimate objects and/or ideas. Ask the more pretentious faculty or alumni of The Ohio State University, who almost seem to be distinguishing themselves from some other, inferior Ohio State. It actually is officially chartered with "The" as part of the name, but the emphasis placed on "The" is an effective way of annoying the fans and alumni of their football rivals like the University of Michigan^noteWho annoy them right back by calling them "An" Ohio State University—though not the UM fans themselves; they and Ohio State generally refuse to even come close to speaking each other's names.— not to mention Ohio's numerous other state universities — which of course guarantees that Ohio State fans will always continue the practice.
- Ohio State actually won a trademark for the word "The" on June 23, 2022.
- The University of York (in the UK) is very particular about its name, because York University is in Toronto.^note
- Two for one: "The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina" is the official name of that school in Charleston.
- Of course, then there's The U. (Most state schools will refer to themselves as this, so if you're telling someone outside your state what college you went to and say The U, they'll have a totally different school in mind. Or they might not have a clue at all—for example, none of Kentucky's universities is ever locally referred to as "The U".)
  - The players who played at the University of Miami introduce themselves as being from "The U" during the opening of Sunday Night Football broadcasts on NBC. This is because of the "U" logo on the side of the school's football helmets. Football fans generally understand this but it might confuse those who are just casual fans. And don't even get into Miami of Ohio.
  - The University of Utah has extra justification for being called The U, but also goes by The U of U.
- The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
- The Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the first university in the U.S. founded specifically to educate blacks, added the The to its name in 2013 to distinguish itself from other universities with Lincoln in their names.^note
- A certain university in Baltimore is officially called The Johns Hopkins University, but no one, even students and faculty, uses the "The" except in mockery.
- It's The University of Chicago, not University of Chicago, in official terms. The school also refers to their undergraduate division as The College.
Before Toronto's multipurpose indoor stadium was renamed Rogers Centre, its management inverted this trope by insisting that you not call the building "The SkyDome". You were to refer to it as "SkyDome". One hopes Bret Hart (above) never mentioned SkyDome^noteWhere WrestleMania VI took place. back in the day.
Most famous museums take articles, even when the name is (or is shortened to) a single word: "the Louvre," "the Prado," "the Uffizi,"^noteall three have articles in their native languages, e.g. Galleria degli Uffizi, literally "gallery of the offices." "the Met." Not, however, when it's an acronym: it's "the Museum of Modern Art," but usually just "MOMA."
- Defied by the London art gallery known to almost everyone as "the Tate Gallery" or "the Tate." In 2000 it was renamed "Tate Britain," to distinguish it from the new "Tate Modern," and they had a campaign to encourage taxi drivers to correct anyone who asked to go to "the Tate."
Both exemplified and inverted by the Christian Science Church, officially the "Church of Christ, Scientist". The main church of the movement in Boston, often called by Christian Scientists "The Mother Church", is officially The First Church of Christ, Scientist. According to the movement's governing document, all other churches in the movement — which are legally branches of The Mother Church — are specifically prohibited from using "The" in front of their names.
It is always "the NACA", with each letter pronounced individually instead of "na-ka". However, it is never "the NASA", nor should the letters be pronounced individually. Unless the speaker is European, in which case all language formalities go out the window.
Canadian military regiments often have "The" as a formal part of their title, and veterans of certain regiments can often be sticky about ensuring it is included. Not "Royal Canadian Regiment" but "The Royal Canadian Regiment."

The Companies and the products

The WB Television Network, and its successor The CW. Most affiliates leave "The" out of their local branding.
A number of brands of Scotch whisky include the "The" at the beginning of the name, and insist that you say it. The most popular is The Macallan—not "Macallan", "The Macallan." Other brands that do this include The Glenlivet and The Balvenie.
The Manolo is the big fan of the definite article. (Also the shoes.)
Clothing retailer Gap used to be "The Gap", but officially dropped "The" in 1986.
George W. Bush inspired mockery when he claimed to use "the Google." His father followed up on this by referring to 24-Hour News Networks as "the cables."
Inverted by The Home Depot. In Quebec, they omit "The" from their name to obey French language laws ("Home Depot" is simply a proper name, but "The Home Depot" would be an English phrase), and because it's more natural for French speakers to say le Home Depot anyway.
Convenience stores are often referred to this way ("the 7-Eleven", "the Circle K", etc.).
"The Popular" was a defunct department store chain in El Paso, Texas. Spanish-speaking people even referred to it as "El Popular."
The defunct West Coast department store chain The Broadway.
Canadian department store chain The Hudson's Bay Company is usually called "the Bay", and from 1965 to 2013 was officially branded that way. In 2021, it made "The Bay" its official online brand, while retaining "Hudson's Bay" for its physical stores. Its English-language online presence has always been at "thebay.com".
- Trope also applies in French. The company's full French name is la Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson, usually called La Baie, and was also officially branded with the short form from 1972–2013. The 2021 division between online and physical store brands was also made in French (physical stores: La Baie d'Hudson). Again, the Francophone online presence has always been "labaie.com".
The Cartoon Network stopped using the "The" on-air in by the end of 1995. It's still used in their legal name, however.
Very common with newspapers: The Times, The New York Times, The Cornell Daily Sun, La Prensa, etc. The New York newspaper commonly known as the "Daily News" is officially The News. Also note periodicals like The Saturday Evening Post.
- Billboard magazine was called The Billboard until 1961.
Disney these days is often called "The Mouse", overtly shouting out to its mascot. One might think of other characteristics of a mouse as well, such as its small size and timid, frightened behaviour.
In Cryptocurrency and Decentralized Finance, one of the first "Decentralized Autonomous Organizations" was known simply as The DAO. It was reportedly originally just a descriptor, but it stuck, and then they needed to differentiate it from the other DAos that people started planning.

The Sports

One of the most successful clubs in the Welsh football league is called The New Saints. It was originally named after its then sponsor Total Network Solutions, and when that deal ended, they wanted a new name that could still be abbreviated to TNS. Hence the "The" is definitely not optional.
The World Football League, a short-lived (1974–75) competitor to the National Football League, had a team based in Hawaii called simply The Hawaiians. Not the Honolulu Hawaiians or the Hawaii Hawaiians, just "The Hawaiians". They were going to be called the Honolulu Warriors, but they ran into trademark trouble with other teams in the area with similar names.
- The Miami Floridians of the American Basketball Association (ABA) just called themselves The Floridians in their final two seasons (1970-72), when their owners tried to build a regional following by splitting home games between Miami and other Florida cities.
- Australian example—the Rugby League semipro team the Redcliffe Dolphins were awarded a team in the top level National Rugby League in 2023 (technically a separate franchise operated by Redcliffe, who still compete in the Queensland state league), but the new team is just called The Dolphins. They generally play home games in Brisbane, but are emphatically not the Brisbane Dolphins.
The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, whose golf course was the site of the 1913, 1963, 1988, and 2022 U.S. Opens.^note
Slippery Rock University, an NCAA Division II school in Pennsylvania, uses "The Rock" as its team nickname, rather than an animal or human occupational name. They were called the Rockets for a while, but changed it in The '60s, presumably in part because Slippery Rock High School is also called the Rockets.

The Other

Like the T-shirt says, "I'm not A bitch, I'm THE bitch!"
Diseases on the east coast of Canada often get this nomenclature, as in: "Oh, she's down with a right case of the pneumonia, she is."
- Gout is commonly referred to as "the gout" in many areas, including areas which don't stick a "the" in front of other diseases. Likewise "the plague," "the mumps," "the measles," and "the flu."
When things that are famous throughout the world are named in untranslated Spanish, the Spanish article el/la is made part of the name by mistake; thus what ought to be "the Niño current" is known as "the El Niño current" despite being known in Spanish as la corriente del Niño.
- Once on Saturday Night Live Chris Farley appeared as an Anthropomorphic Personification of El Niño, in the manner of a Professional Wrestler. "For those of you who don't habla Español, ""El Niño" Is Spanish for "The Niño"."
Since "earth," "moon," and "sun" can be common nouns, in referring to the celestial bodies, English speakers often say "the Earth," and almost always "the Sun" and "the Moon" (even if they leave off the capitals). This isn't done with other planets — nobody says "the Mars" — because those are already proper nouns.
- To quote Alan Davies on QI: "But it has got one moon! It's called the Moon!"
Most people insert "the" in front of ship names, thus we have the Enterprise or the Intrepid. However, at least in the west, a ship name is supposed to be referred to as if it were a person's. Therefore, it's actually grammatically correct to avert this trope (as in the Firefly example under "Live-Action TV").
- An exception are the two American destroyers, USS The Sullivans (DD-537 which fought during World War II, and the later DDG-68), in which the name actually is spelled with a "the" (the ships are named for the five Sullivan brothers killed during the sinking of USS Juneau).
"Shit" and "the shit" are two completely different slang terms, the former being negative and the latter being positive,^note as explained here:
His new car is the shit. / His car is excellent.
His new car is shit. / His new car is not desirable.
In order to be licensed to drive a black cab in London, one must demonstrate mastery of "The Knowledge". Cited as quite possibly the most difficult exam in the world, The Knowledge involves memorizing 320 routes, 25,000 streets, and thousands of points of interest (squares, monuments, clubs, hospitals, embassies, churches, restaurants, and more) in central London, made all the more difficult by London's decided lack of a grid layout.
When the FBI first started waging a public battle against The Mafia, they picked up on how its members called it Cosa Nostra ("our thing", but more literally "the thing of ours"), but the FBI used the term La Cosa Nostra, which amounts to The "Our Thing". The standard Italian form would be la nostra cosa: possessive pronouns precede their nouns, as in most European languages, and for nouns other than family members (mia sorella "my sister") they also have an article. The Mafia has roots in Sicily, which has its own distinct dialect, and it would've been altered through several generations in the US, so they used an altered form minus the article, but the FBI added the article back in, and amusingly extended it by abbreviating it to "the LCN", which would be The "The Our Thing".

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Spell My Name With A The / Real Life

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