The "The" Title Confusion

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The word "the" is among the most common of all the words in all of the English language, the result of which is often the placement of "the" in the title of a work or in the name of a group regardless of the wishes of the people or the person who made it. (This also happens with definite articles in other languages: "le" in French or "der" in German, for instance.)

The "The" Title Confusion is when nobody seems to be quite sure whether or not a "the" is required in a title. As a result, merchandise or advertising can sometimes make it seem as if the title is constantly changing, or if there might even be multiple works/groups with the same title. Often Word of God is required to make a final decision on the matter.

Compare Spell My Name with a "The", when the use of a "the" is insisted upon.

Not to be confused with The "The" Title, or The The.

Examples of The "The" Title Confusion include:

Anime and Manga

  • (The) Slayers.
  • From Cowboy Bebop, (Yoko Kanno and) (The) Seat Belts. (Also some ambiguity as to whether "Seat Belts" should be one word or two.)

Comic Books

Film

  • Due to a printing oversight, we get one in the middle of Attack of the The Eye Creatures.
  • (The) Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
  • In the film Body Slam about a combination of Rock and Wrestling there's a band called "Kicks." A reviewer talking to their manager casually refers to them as "The Kicks," but the manager is quite insistent that it's just "Kicks," saying that using "The" in a band name is passé.
  • Averted with the The Fast and the Furious franchise, where The Fast and the Furious is the name of the first movie, while Fast and Furious is the name of the fifth movie.
    • Not averted with the localizations: The first movie (and with it, the whole franchise) is known as Fast and Furious in France.
  • Similarly averted with Final Destination, where any confusion over whether or not it needed a "the" was cleared away (or possibly enhanced) by the title of the fourth installment, The Final Destination.
  • (The) Gangs of New York
  • Last Action Hero was usually called The Last Action Hero until its release sans "The."
  • The film Minority Report is based on a story titled "The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick. A short story collection by Dick was released around the same time as the movie bearing the name Minority Report like the movie, not the original story.
  • The credits to the American version of War of the Gargantuas has a The before the title which is not included when the title is displayed on advertising or home video packaging.
  • 2012 movie Salmon Fishing in the Yemen puts a "the" in front of the name of the country of Yemen for no obvious reason.
  • School of Rock was originally called "The School of Rock," as seen in its title sequence.
  • The 2005 Spielberg adaptation of The War of the Worlds dropped the "The" from the title.
  • The original treatment for Star Wars was subtitled The Star Wars.

Literature

  • Despite commonly being abbreviated "LotR", J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy epic is called The Lord of the Rings.
    • Also happens in-story: when Radagast talks about a land he's heard of called Shire, Gandalf tells him it's The Shire.
  • The third series of Warrior Cats is called Power of Three. Officially, there is no "the"; however, fans usually add the "the", giving this story arc the Fan Nickname "Teapot" (The Power of Three = TPoT = Teapot.)

Live-Action TV

  • In-Universe example: In the Firefly episode "Bushwhacked", an Alliance officer asks Inara how long she's been on "the Serenity", prompting her to correct him that it's "just Serenity".
  • Happy Days: Arthur Fonzarelli, aka "Fonzie" or "The Fonz."

Music

  • Pete Wentz's band Black Cards are often called "The Black Cards".
  • Eagles and Carpenters both commonly get a "the" slapped in front of their names.
  • (The) Magnetic Fields
  • The Offspring released their second album under the name "Offspring".
  • [The] Pet Shop Boys typically insist upon having no "the," but where it makes more grammatical sense, it can pop up.
  • (The) Pixies.
  • Conversely, it was definitely The Pink Floyd, at least until Syd Barrett got kicked out.
  • (The) Strawbs
  • The band Talking Heads were often erroneously referred to as "The Talking Heads"; they responded by naming one of their live albums The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads.
  • Similarly, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart called themselves Eurythmics, not the Eurythmics.
  • Deliberately invoked by the band "The The".
    • Leading to the following joke. A guy in a record store is asked to file all the albums in alphabetical order. He starts by filing them all under 'T' 'The Beatles, The Rolling Stones' etc. "No" says his boss. "Ignore the 'the'. Then he gets to 'The The'.
  • (The) Jonas Brothers.

Professional Wrestling

  • Many wrestlers from the National Wrestling Alliance and the World Wrestling Federation had a hard time breaking the habit of using "the" when they were in WCW. Bret Hart in particular was notorious for this.
    • Likewise when the World Wrestling Federation changed their name to World Wrestling Entertainment many wrestlers continued to refer to it as "the WWE."

Tabletop Games

  • In Pathfinder, the herald of the god Gozreh is called Personification of Fury. Fury doesn't like being accidentally called "The Personification of Fury" by accident (or being referred to with gendered pronouns, or as "it").
  • After the original 1E version, a large number of uses of The Temple of Elemental Evil don't include the "the". The sequel, Return to The Temple of Elemental Evil, is one of the few exceptions, and it uses the "the" but only because the title doesn't work without it.

Video Games

  • (The) Legend Of Zelda. This sometimes pops up in abbreviations. Is it just LoZ or is it TLoZ?
  • When referring to The King of Fighters, the The tends to be dropped by many (i.e. King of Fighters), although the eponymous tournament is usually missing the article as well or just goes by KOF for short. Ditto goes for The Last Blade, which is even denoted as Last Blade on this very wiki.
  • Langrisser and Der Langrisser are two different games; the latter is a remake of Langrisser II.

Web Comics

Q: "The Perry Bible Fellowship", or "Perry Bible Fellowship"?
A: The PBF. Treat it like a rock band though. For instance: "I own a White Stripes album", not "I own a The White Stripes album".

    • And despite this, the website address is www.pbfcomics.com.

Web Original

Do not use A, An, or The as the first word (Economy of the Second Empire, not The Economy of the Second Empire), unless it is an inseparable part of a name (The Hague) or title of a work (A Clockwork Orange, The Simpsons).

Western Animation

  • (The) Family Guy
  • The Jetsons has a full-length feature titled Jetsons: The Movie, to which fans sometimes refer as The Jetsons Movie.

Real Life

  • The Gambia
  • Ukraine (no "The", at least not any more)
  • United States (no "The")
  • United Kingdom (no "The")
  • United Nations (no "The")
  • Skydome, in Toronto, before the name change to Rogers Centre (which still, for the most part, doesn't use "The").
  • France, despite the fact that it's "la France" in its native French.
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