Simple and easy:
“The,” too, is problematic — as in “the Ukraine.” That phrase suggests a region, not a nation. The first time I heard “Ukraine,” without a “the,” was in the mid 1980s. Robert Conquest, the great historian, had come to campus to talk about the Soviets’ “terror-famine” in the Ukraine, or Ukraine (1932–33). Many Ukrainians, he explained, insisted on no “the.”
“Ukraine” sounded so weird to me. It would take me years to get used to it. I also had to get used to “Sudan,” having grown up with “the Sudan.” Once, Paul Johnson — another great British historian — sent us a piece at National Review in which he referred to “the Lebanon.” To him, it was perfectly natural.
