Wikipedia and other sources tend to use “the Fediverse”, but I’ve also seen just “Fediverse”. From what I know, it depends on whether the term is a proper name or just the name of a unique thing. Could someone please explain how do you think the term should be properly named and why?

  • Serge TarkovskiOPM
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    4 years ago

    In the UK, the same person can be mentioned as “the queen” and “Queen”. I’ve heard an explanation that the latter form is like a name, similarly to “Mommy” and “Daddy”, which also could be used starting from a capital letter and without an article. “Fediverse” is always used with a starting capital letter, so that’s why I was confused. Seems it’s the matter of predominant native speakers’ taste whether to consider Fediverse as a name or just as a single unique entity.

    • AgreeableLandscape
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      4 years ago

      The Fediverse is a proper noun though, so I always thought it would have similar grammatical rules as “the UK” or “the US”.

      • Serge TarkovskiOPM
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        4 years ago

        Those are rather plural, so the use of “the” is a bit more clear to me in this case.

          • Serge TarkovskiOPM
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            4 years ago

            Technically “kingdom” isn’t plural, but means something like “a big group of people” or so, so sort of plural. “Republic” has a similar meaning IMO. Of course it’s just my interpretation as I wanted some logic behind all those tricky rules about when to use articles.

            • AgreeableLandscape
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              4 years ago

              Technically “kingdom” isn’t plural, but means something like “a big group of people” or so, so sort of plural.

              So is the Fediverse though.

              I think you can also think of it as “the Mississippi River”.

    • roastpotatothief
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      4 years ago

      “The queen” is normally the queen of England. “Queen” is normally the band.

      You could address the queen of England “hello queen” but that’s the only context i can think of.

      • triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml
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        3 years ago

        One more - her (informal) name is “queen Elizabeth”, no " the".

        I don’t know the terminology around it, but it seems like its similar with other titles - “who is the president”, but “vote for president dog”.