Ukraine V

[Bob McC]

fixed

Thanks.
My daughter in law is half Ukrainian and gets very annoyed when she sees “the”.

 

[NeilR]

Does she read PFM then?

 

[Spraggons Den]

It’s an odd one because no one would say tHe France or the Poland. I wondered if the word erm…the…had crept in because it starts with a vowel but the India or the Uruguay never crops up anywhere.

 

[TheDecameron]

A Russian colonel with close ties to Vladimir Putin, and who was involved in this autumn's mass recruitment drive for the army, has been found dead in his office. He shot himself, five times apparently:


https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/vadim-boyko-mystery-as-putins-military-crony-found-shot-dead/

 

[Bjork67]

Five times shows great fortitude. Bravo

 

[Bart]

The last 4 of the shots were in self defence.

 

[TheDecameron]

You wonder how many officers have taken one from their own team on the front line. More than 1,400 of them are dead already, confirmed cases.

 

[Seeker_UK]

It’s an odd one because no one would say tHe France or the Poland. I wondered if the word erm…the…had crept in because it starts with a vowel but the India or the Uruguay never crops up anywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine#:~:text=Ukraine is one of a,the" on 3 December 1991.

IIUC, the convention is that "The" is a preposition for a region, not a country. Use of "the" in conjunction with "Ukraine" harks back to pre-independence and when it was a member of the Soviet Union; quite emotive when you're fighting against that happening again.

[Edit]

Bob McC told me off about it once, so I dun some reading.

 

[Spraggons Den]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine#:~:text=Ukraine is one of a,the" on 3 December 1991.

IIUC, the convention is that "The" is a preposition for a region, not a country. Use of "the" in conjunction with "Ukraine" harks back to pre-independence and when it was a member of the Soviet Union; quite emotive when you're fighting against that happening again.

[Edit]

Bob McC told me off about it once, so I dun some reading.

Great explanation and makes sense in terms of the Pennies, the Cairngorms, the North etc but ....the East Anglia?

 

[gustavm]

Great explanation and makes sense in terms of the Pennies, the Cairngorms, the North etc but ....the East Anglia?

 

[notaclue]

It’s an odd one because no one would say tHe France or the Poland. I wondered if the word erm…the…had crept in because it starts with a vowel but the India or the Uruguay never crops up anywhere.

But you do say the United Kingdom, plus the UAE, USA. Also the Gambia, the DRC, the Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivore). Maybe the Togo?

So quite a few.

The Bahamas is another one.

 

[paulfromcamden]

Great explanation and makes sense in terms of the Pennies, the Cairngorms, the North etc but ....the East Anglia?

OT but until I read the wiki article cited I'd never really thought about why we say The Netherlands.

 

[Bart]

Not half as annoying as when people call Great Britain or the UK ‘England’.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Great explanation and makes sense in terms of the Pennies, the Cairngorms, the North etc but ....the East Anglia?

The Cotswolds; the Home Counties; The North West; The Black Country; The Peak District; [...]

East Anglia looks like an odd one out.

Thanks to @Seeker_UK for the explanation, which makes perfect sense, and explains why I used to think of it as 'the' Ukraine, too.

 

[mykel]

Supposedly and emptied out nuclear weapons casing
Other than running out of conventional munitions - Why?

https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1593518889186611203/photo/1

 

[Barrymagrec]

The Cotswolds; the Home Counties; The North West; The Black Country; The Peak District; [...]

East Anglia looks like an odd one out.

I don`t know why people think it`s odd to marry your sister?

 

[DimitryZ]

It’s an odd one because no one would say tHe France or the Poland. I wondered if the word erm…the…had crept in because it starts with a vowel but the India or the Uruguay never crops up anywhere.

Maybe it's because Ukraine hasn't been independent long enough. It seems that in English "the" is used to denote a region - i.e. a non-sovereign land.

Russian has a similar distinction but uses a different form of speech to denote it. "In Ukraine" refers to the country but "On Ukraine" (Russian "Na Ukraine") makes it a region.

Maybe?

Edit: My wife, the writer, points out that the article is often used with names of nations that are plural - United States, etc.

 

[DonQuixote99]

Supposedly and emptied out nuclear weapons casing
Other than running out of conventional munitions - Why?

https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1593518889186611203/photo/1

The suggestion in the thread that the disarmed nuke was used as a decoy to help saturate Ukraine defenses makes some sense. If the nuke was gutted 'in the field' that strikes me as an unsafe improvisation. Whole warhead should have gone back to a proper facility. Maybe someone wasn't the fisile material for some reason, such as to sell, or to make a dirty bomb.

 

[mykel]

The suggestion in the thread that the disarmed nuke was used as a decoy to help saturate Ukraine defenses makes some sense. If the nuke was gutted 'in the field' that strikes me as an unsafe improvisation. Whole warhead should have gone back to a proper facility. Maybe someone wasn't the fisile material for some reason, such as to sell, or to make a dirty bomb.

I understand the dummy decoy theory.
My issue is with the complexity of removing a fissile core and then its subsequent handling.
Unless you are running out of conventional munitions this seems to be pretty extreme.
The idea of wanting the fissile material does make some sense. Somebody's revenue stream has been severely impacted by the special operation and needs to be supplemented?

 

[Seeker_UK]

My issue is with the complexity of removing a fissile core and then its subsequent handling.

It could have been a practice munition, but even if it was a live weapon which had had the warhead removed, I suspect that Russia is not hard over on the whole health and safety thing.