Re: Countries with needless definite article.

[mje@xxxxxxxx]

[Patricia M. Godfrey:]
> Or are you, perhaps, thinking of that terribly un-PC expression The Levant?
   No, I wasn't thinking of that. I'm not sure what the Levant is,
so it doesn't even figure in my thinking. What is un-P.C. about "the
Levant"?
   In fact, I don't use "the" with any of the examples I cited
earlier, except the plural ones like the Phillipines or the United
States which seem to require it (and I suppose the Maldives too); but
I have just often been struck by how many people, especially older
ones, do still use it. They seem to do it more with some countries
than others, and it struck me that "the Lebanon" is one of the
commoner ones.

             Regards,
             Michael Edwards.