The Ukraine | Toast and relative risks | So many ‘so’s | And anyway | Weetabix in 1950s MaltaTony Burson (Letters, 21 January) asks why some countries are (or were) preceded by the definite article. In the case of Ukraine, it was in the past known as “the Ukraine”. However, the name is an Old Slavic word for “borderlands”, implying that the (now independent) country is merely an outlying part of Russia. Ukrainian nationalists were, understandably, not happy to be minimised in this way, so the definite article is only now used by the unwise.Dr Richard CarterLondon• As I dropped …read more
Source: The Guardian
