英文中最強大無懼的單字：THE

'The' can even have philosophical implications. The Austrian philosopher Alexius Meinong said a denoting phrase like 'the round square' introduced that object; there was now such a thing. According to Meinong, the word itself created non-existent objects, arguing that there are objects that exist and ones that don't but they are all created by language. "'The' has a kind of magical property in philosophy," says Barry C Smith, director of the Institute of Philosophy, University of London.

the可能也帶有哲學暗示，澳洲哲學家Alexius Meinong表示，像是the round square這樣的描 述詞，介紹出一個物體，代表「現在有個這種東西了」。他說，the 這個字本身創造了不存在的物體，並稱物體分為存在及不存在，但都是從語言中而生。倫敦大學哲學研究所所長 Barry C Smith 說:「the 在哲學中是神奇的存在。」

Even within the language, there are subtle differences in how 'the' is used in British and American English such as when talking about playing a musical instrument. An American might be more likely to say 'I play guitar' whereas a British person might opt for 'I play the guitar', but there are some instruments where both nationalities might happily omit 'the' such as 'I play drums' . Equally, the same person might interchangeably refer to their playing of any given instrument with or without the definite article because both are correct and both make sense.

即便在語言中，英式英文與美式英文中 the 的用法也有微妙的不同，比方說談到彈奏樂器時， 美國人比較可能會說I play guitar，而英國人則可能會選擇說I play the guitar。不過，有些樂器則是英美人士提到時都會不加the，例如I play drums.。相同地，同一個人可能會在提到某個樂器時，有時用定冠詞，有時又沒有加，因為加不加都正確，也都合理。