The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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10:43am on Monday, 28th June, 2021:
Weird
My Lizzie Lott #3 book is set in Paris in 1871. On my current read-through, I encountered the following phrase:
They arrived at Boulevard Mazas in good time
Hmm, well that should be 'the Boulevard Mazas'.
Why?
I have no idea why.
I looked through all mentions of Boulevards, Rues and Places I mention in the text, and found the following (note: 1871 names):
Boulevard Beaumarchais, Boulevard Poissonnière, Boulevard Haussmann, Boulevard de Sébastopol, Boulevard Voltaire, Boulevard Mazas;
Rue de Rivoli, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Rue de la Paix, Rue de Louvois, Rue Vivienne, Rue Sainte-Anne, Rue de la Banque, Rue de Richelieu, Rue de Berry, Rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, Rue de Picpus, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Rue Montmartre, Rue de Sèvres, Rue des Petits Champs;
Place de la Bastille, Place du Château-d'Eau, Place de la Bourse, Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville, Place du Carrousel, Place de l'Opéra, Place du Trône.
In every case, apart from the one for Boulevard Mazas mentioned above, I precede the name of the street with the word "the". Lizzie doesn't go to Rue de Louvois, she goes to the Rue de Louvois. She doesn't walk the length of Rue de Picpus, she walks the length of the Rue de Picpus. Her hotel is not on Rue de Rivoli, it's on the Rue de Rivoli.
I don't do this when writing about English streets. I wouldn't say I walked the length of "the Oxford Street", for example. I would mention the definitive article if it were part of the name ("The Crescent") and I might mention it for a road if the destination was important (so conceivably might refer to a hotel on "the London Road"). The only occasion when I'd add an unstated definite article as a matter of course would be in referring to "the High Street", probably because its function is important enough to warrant that.
For French streets, though, I do it as a matter of course. Maybe it's because the street-word comes first and the title-words come second, I don't know. All I can say for sure is that I've changed the reference from "Boulevard Mazas" to "the Boulevard Mazas" and it feels a lot more comfortable as a result.
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