Can you end a sentence with "the"?

You just did!

yes. it can be substituted for an improper noun. an example is the elephant roams the gountryside. it can also be expressed as the countryside is teming with the. it is a very old fashioned way of writing. however, you have to state the context.

also, you can finish a french sentence with “le” or “la” or “les” which are the masculine, feminine and plural forms of “the”.

Please clarify. It sounds interesting but I really don’t understand how “the elephant roams the gountryside (sic)” is a sentence ending with “the”. “the countryside is teming with the” doesn’t make much sense.

I’d also love an example of a French sentence with any of the aforementioned le, la, les mentioned above. Thanks.

the word “the” in thi context is an elephant, so you can replace the word elephant with “the”. also, the french is “les elephants sont tout autour les plains”, “les elephants, les plains sont plein avec les”

You wouldn’t say, “Les éléphants… les plains y sont pleins” ?.

I don’t think that the idea works in English. “The elephants, the countryside is teeming with them” is awkward at best, and ....” The elephants, the countryside is teeming with the” is unacceptable.

as i said, it is a very old way of saying it, and the word “them” derived from the word “the”. its just plural. also, what you said in french means “the elephants, the fields are full”. it doesnt mention the elephant, which is what the fields are filled with.

the question asked ended with it LOL

@Bio: see brownlemur’s response #1.

@Mlt: Thanks. But isn’t “the” the direct article and “them” the plural of “he”, “she”, “it”?

And speaking of elephants,do you know the old Grouch Marx joke that illustrates a dangling participle? “I shot an elephant, standing in my pajamas.”

How about this; “Les éléphants, les plains sont pleins avec eux”?

Well, je vais me coucher et rêver d’éléphants.

that french phrase also works.

“the is derived from “it” whose masculine and feminie are “he” and “she” and “them” is the plural form of the derived “the”. they are very similar, just an “m” added.

My favourite word is “the”.

Mine may be “elephants.”

@Mtl; Do you live in Québec? You are obviously bi-lingual.

Some of the answers can be so blithe.
Look! I just did it.

I am ending this sentence with “the”.

yes i live in montreal

English is my first language and “the” is the indeclinable definite article. However, my dictionary says that Old English, as you mentioned, had other forms; viz: thone, thaes, thaere, thaem. Thanks for alerting me to that. I am a language maven and love learning this stuff.

Now, how about, “Les élephants, les plains en sont pleins”?

Or “Grace à Di*u, les éléphants sont complètement disparus”.

the first one, the “en” should be replaced by a “y”, and in the second one the “sont” should be “ont” because the verb that needs to be conjugated (disparer), is not under the exceptions hat fall under the group of “etre”

There’s nothing incorrect about Gail’s French.

In the first sentence, replacing ‘en’ with ‘y’ changes the meaning (from “the elephants: the plains are full of them” to “the elephants: the plains there are full”) and both are correct grammatically.

In the second sentence, changing the verb also changes the meaning, from “Thanks to G-d, the elephants are completely gone” to “Thanks to G-d, the elephants have completely disappeared.” Both are grammatical, but the meaning and the tense of the verb change. Ordinarily, the verb ‘disparaitre’ takes ‘avoir’ as an auxiliary verb, but it’s perfectly legitimate to use the verb ‘etre’ with a participle as a predicate adjective.

And replying to the original question: ‘the’ is an adjective that makes no grammatical sense without a following substantive. Unless you’re using it to refer to the word specifically, and not in a grammatical function, then no, you can’t end a sentence with ‘the.’ Unless, of course, you’re creating some kind of word salad experimental poetry, in which case all bets are off.

how about “what the..?”
i guess thats more of an expression than a real sentence.

@allie; that is clearly not a sentence nor a sentence fragment either.

gail: got it. =]

@gailcalled: I believe it is a sentence fragment, with an elliptical construction—the necessary substantive following ‘the’ is elided (because of its profanity, it’s left to the imagination of the hearer/reader), as is the predicate (because it can be inferred). “What the (****) (is going on)?”

So we’ve found one construction in which ‘the’ can meaningfully be used to end a sentence fragment.

@cwilbur; Thank g*d for the nuns. They had my 9th grade English teacher sobbing in the dust. I will concede that the construction works..and what a lovely one it is.

So in TM, could a prude simply write WT..?