Proper Nouns without THEWe do not use "the" with names of people. For example: | first names | Bill (not *the Bill) | | Hilary | | surnames | Clinton | | Gates | | full names | Hilary Gates |
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If the full (registered) name of a company starts with "The", then we use "The" if we use the full name, for example:
- The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd
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We do not normally use "the" with names of companies. For example: - Renault, Ford, Sony, EnglishClub.com
- General Motors, Air France, British Airways
- Warner Brothers, Brown & Son Ltd
We do not normally use "the" for shops, banks, hotels etc named after a founder or other person (with -'s or -s). For example: | shops | Harrods, Marks & Spencer, Maceys | | banks | Barclays Bank | | hotels, restaurants | Steve's Hotel, Joe's Cafe, McDonalds | | churches, cathedrals | St John's Church, St Peter's Cathedral |
We do not normally use "the" with names of places. For example: | towns | Washington (not *the Washington), Paris, Tokyo | | states, regions | Texas, Kent, Eastern Europe | | countries | England, Italy, Brazil | | continents | Asia, Europe, North America | | islands | Corsica | | mountains | Everest |
Exception! If a country name includes "States","Kingdom", "Republic" etc, we use "the": | states | the United States, the US, the United States of America, the USA | | kingdom | the United Kingdom, the UK | | republic | the French Republic |
We do not use "the" with "President/Doctor/Mr etc + Name": | the president, the king | President Bush (not *the President Bush) | | the captain, the detective | Captain Kirk, Detective Colombo | | the doctor, the professor | Doctor Well, Dr Well, Professor Dolittle | | my uncle, your aunt | Uncle Jack, Aunt Jill | | | Mr Gates (not *the Mr Gates), Mrs Clinton, Miss Black |
Look at these example sentences: - I wanted to speak to the doctor.
- I wanted to speak to Doctor Brown.
- Who was the president before President Kennedy?
We do not use "the" with "Lake/Mount + Name": | the lake | Lake Victoria | | the mount | Mount Everest |
Look at this example sentence: - We live beside Lake Victoria. We have a fantastic view across the lake.
We do not normally use "the" for roads, streets, squares, parks etc: | streets etc | Oxford Street, Trenholme Road, Fifth Avenue | | squares etc | Trafalgar Square, Oundle Place, Piccadilly Circus | | parks etc | Central Park, Kew Gardens |
Many big, important buildings have names made of two words (for example, Kennedy Airport). If the first word is the name of a person or place, we do not normally use "the": | people | Kennedy Airport, Alexander Palace, St Paul's Cathedral | | places | Heathrow Airport, Waterloo Station, Edinburgh Castle |
Proper Nouns with THE » |
