I was wondering about this.

My conclusion was that “the Ukraine” refers to the geography and territory (it would read as The Borderland in East Slavic, between the steppe and the Carpathians) whereas Ukraine is the republic and nation that resides in the territory.

Since this war directly involves the population and the government, it is Ukraine the nation, not ‘the Ukraine’ the land.

Ukraine means «Fortified area» in Ukrainian or Polish. It's «укріплення» (fortifications) + «край»(area)/«країна»(country) = «україна». A modern Ukrainian word with the same meaning is «укріпрайон» (fortified area). It's started by Poland as a set of fortifications to protect eastern Poland against nomads from the East. Multiple ukrains were built. Ukrainian Cossacks were used for defense. When lines of defense covered large territory, the whole protected area received the name «fortified area» (Ukraine).

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Le_Vasseur_de_Beaupl... for details.

Russians are trying to downplay this and replace Oo at the beginning with Oh, to create Russian word Outskirt instead.

> My conclusion

As you can guess, there is no definitive article "the" in Ukrainian language:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171014083357/http://www.ukrwee...

they did achieve something!

they took out 200 men with /200 helicopters/ to take over an airstrip

and 17 blokes on an island in a shed with a /warship/

Thanks. Noted and corrected.

Don't beat yourself up over it, though.

'The Ukraine' used to be perfectly acceptable English.

It's a bit like Burma vs Myanmar.

'The Ukraine' was acceptable when it was a region of other countries (like "the Midlands" or "the American Southwest"). It's unacceptable to refer to a country. I'm sure trying to (subtly) demote Ukraine from a country to a region is a goal of Russian propagandists.

> It's unacceptable to refer to a country.

The United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Bahamas, the Gambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (and probably others) would like a word. :)

Full names don't get that treatment for some reason, but even that fully applies. It's the United States of America or America. It's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or Great Britain. It's the People's Republic of China or China.

I will admit commonwealth countries are often "The Republic of The X". But that naming seems left over from when they were territories of the British Empire, where "the X" is referring to a subdivision of the empire.

You better fix Wikipedia then:

> The Netherlands (Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdərlɑnt] (audio speaker)), informally Holland,[15][16] is a country located in Western Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands

Unites States of the America

IMHO it’s still 'the Ukraine,' 'Burma' &c. There's no need to change. We say Paris, with an 's,' not 'paree'; the French say 'Londres,' not London, and that's okay too. Languages use their own words for common place names, and that is fine. There's nothing wrong with using a language's words, and no real need to change them.

There is something wrong when it's a clear political statement to use the wrong term

> Thanks. Noted and corrected.

Looks like it wasn't a clear political statement, and was instead an honest mistake. Let's not get too carried away with this, there's a very real conflict going on and I don't imagine the people being shelled and shot at are particularly concerned about the word "the" right now.

If you read the chain, the clear political statement was by eadmund. But sticking to old terms or naming conventions (or switching to new ones) is often a political statement. It's a powerful way to do it. I mean, look at the people calling COVID-19 "the China virus". Or the people with strong opinions on "blacklist" vs "denylist"

> If you read the chain, the clear political statement was by eadmund.

Ummm, I made no clear political statement, just a linguistic one. I am instinctively conservative, and deeply suspicious of folks who promote change for change's sake. Our language is a lovely, beautiful one and we have spent the last several decades abusing it.

Eh, we've spent the last few hundreds years abusing our lovely language.

And the only reason it ain't longer, is because if you go far enough back, it's different enough that we can't call it our language anymore.

Language evolves and political correctness is just one force amongst many, and not even a new one:

> "Rooster" was originally shorthand for "roosting bird," preferred by the Puritans to the double entendre of the more typical "cock."

From https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/...

These days saying rooster doesn't typical indicate any prude leanings by the speaker, even though that's how this change started.