User:LilHelpa/thethe

There is a very high occurrence of the "'the the'" error. Perhaps in the order of 20–30 per day being added. It is listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fix common mistakes.

I began noticing the high frequency when the error seemed to show up in nearly every AWB session. From April 1 – October 15, 2010, I corrected this error in 75–100 articles per day (on average – sometimes more than 250). Then until December 2010, I averaged 20–50 articles per day. I no longer have the will to try to keep up with the new additions.

the the

The occurrences of "the the" are nearly always errant.

Accidental causes

• The contributor lost train paused after "the" to consider what noun or phrase to use, then continued starting the phrase with "the" again.
• Contributor's brain races ahead of their fingers, (or lags behind?) causing the typing of "the the" rather than something such as "to the".
• Often the cause is a piped wiklink following "the". Frequently one sees, for example, "This is described on the the LilHelpa talk page in detail."

Intentional causes

• Use of "the the Netherlands" from misunderstanding of Netherlands (terminology). A similar problem occurs with the Philippines.

the The

Usage of "the The" is found frequently (and is frequently wrong) and can be correct in the case of things like "They published the The Rolling Stones DVD box set". Often those can be reworded to sound less awkward – perhaps "They published a DVD box set of songs by The Rolling Stones.

To test whether it is correct I substitute (in this case) a group without the "the" at the start of its name. Thus, "They published the Aerosmith DVD box set" or "they published the Coldplay DVD box set". Both are fine.

In evaluating this situation I generally ask myself things such as:

• Would you say, "His article in the Newsweek was well written."? So why then: "His article in the The New York Times was well written."?
• Would you say, "His performance on the American Idol was well received"? So why then: "His performance on the The News Hour was..."?
• Similarly: He was a member of the Aerosmith. vs He was a member of the The Beatles.

Band names

User:PL290 brought the following to my attention:

I notice your fixes have included changing the rendering of band names, even where there was no duplication of the word. Please note that our Manual of Style now deprecates capitalized "The" for band names in running prose (see the relevant guideline).

Instances that I leave alone for now

Chinese classics

The listing of the classics at Chinese classics uses the article the before all of the works, even those such as the The Art of War, and those which have article titles without The initially. I'm not sure if this is a typical convention or not. For comparison see how Magna Carta is handled.

Works of art

There does seem to be a convention to use the the before (especially) paintings. Especially old ones.