1928: Determiners for Places Mar 26, 2020

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One of the defining features of pronouns and other determiner phrases is that they don't take a determiner, meaning there isn't possible to have "the you". However, there are some idiomatic phrases which break this rule, as it were. Place-names or personal names, for instance, can take some determiners, even though they are definite (i.e. specific), such that one could possible say “that London is a busy place” or "that Bill is a clever man". There are a few exceptions to this, but for a variety of reasons—generally for emphasis—these do occur. For another area where this occurs despite general understandings of proper nouns, read the rest “Determiners for Natural Features”.

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