Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
Until I read this I never realized that most countries are seldom call "the NAME." Russia is just Russia, Canada- Canada etc. The US of A and The USSR are exceptions. But Ukraine has always been the Ukraine ("the Ukraine is weak Newman!"), until i read this, where "
Ukraine" gav eme pause because it sounded wrong. Is there some rule or is this another random English quirk?
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My boyfriend was born in the USSR (in the Ukraine) and grew up in post-Soviet Ukraine. As he told me, as soon as Ukraine was no longer a Soviet Socialist Republic, other countries dropped the article when referring to it. It never had the article in Russian/Ukrainian because those languages don't have articles.