Why Does the Bay Area Hate 'The' So Much?

One of the pleasures of living in Berkeley is taking our children to Little Farm, nestled in the hills of Tilden Regional Park. The farm features cows, pigs, chickens and other livestock, and kids are allowed to feed the animals (celery and lettuce only).

Everyone refers to the place as "Little Farm" (and if you're an East Bay parent, you refer to it a lot). But as I was looking at the windpump, I discovered that it's actually called "The Little Farm."

A visit to the Tilden website confirms it: "The Little Farm was built in 1955 and features a variety of farm animals including cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens and pigs...."

This all brings me back to an ongoing question for Bay Area linguists (one I've addressed on this blog before): Why do we insist on scrubbing the definite article from everything?

We don't say "the Muni" or "the BART," as Bank of America learned after its billboard flub. In Boston, meanwhile, they happily call their subway "the T." The Bay Area also never uses "the" with freeways — a contrast from Southern California and some other parts of the country.

And Mark Zuckerberg had to be told by a Bay Area resident (Sean Parker) how to fix the name of TheFacebook: "Drop the 'The.' Just 'Facebook.' It's cleaner."

If the British alternative band The The had tried to make it in San Francisco, it would have been called "___ ___."

I think there are two trends at work here. First, there's the rise of texting and tweeting — communication needs to be more succinct, especially in the tech-obsessed Bay Area. Who needs an extra "the"?

Second, definite articles are used in phrases with superlatives and specifics: "He's the fastest," "Mark is the big man on campus." Bay Area residents are less likely to believe in bright-line demarcations. We're more into gray area.

That means we're not willing to say we're riding "the" BART — it might just be one of many BARTs. (Maybe locals also are more likely to subscribe to multiple-universe theories.)

It's worth noting that BART never carried a "the" — even when it was still in development. Check out this video from the 1967, subtitled "a progress report from BART."



In fairness, we aren't anarthrous about everything. It's still "the Campanile," "the Transamerica Pyramid" etc. But the general trend is to shed the definite article from most Bay Area institutions, and that seems to have been the case with Little Farm.

Like Facebook, I guess it's "cleaner" now. But maybe "Littlefarm" would be ever better?

Most Popular Posts of All Time

I updated my settings: BuboBlog now lists the site's 10 most popular posts (based on hits) along the right side of the page.

It's a surprising list. The top entry is about infant sign language, followed by one on the Gerber baby.

I have the sinking suspicion that parents are arriving at this site in search of legitimate child-rearing advice.

If so...sorry!

Maybe It's Not the Bridge We Should Worry About

Remember my discussion about movies using the Golden Gate Bridge as their favorite landmark to destroy?

Well, after a lull in Golden Gate abuse, it seemed as if "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" was a return to form, with its trailer depicting apes overrunning the bridge. I haven't seen the film, but I hear it involves a South San Francisco biotech corporation (perhaps modeled on Genetech). A supersmart chimp is produced, who ultimately leads an assault on the Golden Gate.

So I was surprised to see this full-page ad in my Chronicle this morning.

Apparently they destroy everything BUT the bridge.

'Don't STOP Til You Get Enough'

This one comes courtesy of danmartell on Twitter/Instagram.

You can tell it was shot in San Francisco not Berkeley, because the message isn't humorless and/or overtly political. (What? I kid.)

To see the whole series, I've created a "Stop Signs" label.

Stop Hurting That Tree!

Our neighborhood had what has to be an only-in-Berkeley moment this week.

A city worker came out to cut down a large tree across the street. As he began the job, several neighbors approached him with concern. After all, we like our leafy street and didn't want to lose a mature tree. He said it was diseased and had to come down.

The neighbors weren't placated, so the man tried to ease everyone's conscience. He said he had studied tree biology extensively and the tree wouldn't suffer or feel any pain as it was being cut down.

Right, THAT was what we were worried about.

It makes me wonder if this is the usual complaint the guy encounters in Berkeley. Maybe I'm just a tree exploiter — ruthlessly using them for shade, fruit and oxygen — but I've never given much thought to the pain tolerance of plant life. (I guess if I had seen "The Happening," I might be concerned the tree would turn on us.)

Anyway, the tree is gone now, though I'm sure I will be haunted by its silent screams in my sleep.

Why Boys Don't Have Laws Named After Them

The other day I was noting that every recent child-protection law seems to be named after a girl (Megan's Law, Jessica's Law, Amber Alert, etc.). You would think a few would be named after boys. In fact, I can't think of any — at least here in California.

Anyway, maybe cases like this one are part of the reason why...

From CBS San Francisco:

Antioch police reported a 16-year-old boy, originally the subject of a statewide Amber Alert, was arrested Tuesday afternoon in connection with a Monday barber shop robbery.

Police said the boy, Hasaan Ameer Ford, has admitted his involvement in the robbery, as well as the feigning of his kidnapping.

Dude, not helping our cause here.

Even the City of Berkeley Can't Spell Berkeley

I've noted before that many people find Berkeley hard to spell: They typically underestimate the number of E's.

I even contemplated a blog devoted to misspellings of Berkeley (something akin to the "Blog" of Unnecessary "Quotation Marks"). But my wife pointed out that it would be even more boring than this blog, and that's saying something.

Still, it's worth noting that Berkeley is frequently misspelled in a surprising place: the website of the city of Berkeley.

There are 331 pages and documents on the site that spell it "Berkley" and another 61 that spell it "Berkely," according to the site's internal search engine (powered by Google). There's also one "Berkelee" (along with seven references to the correctly spelled Berklee College of Music in Boston). It's cold comfort, I suppose, that it never appears as "Berkly."

The city is at least an equal-opportunity offender. In 2008, the intersection of Berkeley and California streets had the city spelled correctly and the state spelled wrong: ("Califorina"). It was fixed, as you can see below.

Photo: Jonathan Curiel / San Francisco Chronicle

Even the pages maintained by our esteemed councilmembers aren't immune to misspellings. The representative for my district in South Berkeley, Maxwell Anderson, promises to "post important and useful information pertinate to our constituents." I don't know what "pertinate" information is, but it sounds kind of dirty.

I realize we're living in a time of budget cuts and stressed-out civil servants, but can we can at least get "Berkeley" right?

After all, E's are free.