re: #137 HappyWarrior

Never understood why Ukraine sometimes is called “The Ukraine.” Wish Sergey were around. I think he’d probably know.

it was called ‘the ukraine’ when the term designated a region, just like we refer to the area around the sahel desert as ‘the sahel’. when it became an independent country, ukranian leaders asked english speakers to drop the ‘the’ in recognition that the name now designated a sovereign nation