re: #128 wheat-dogg, raker of forests, master of steam

In Spanish, we don’t say “la Francia” or “el Aleman” for France or Germany. It’s just Francia or Aleman. So, I don’t know where you get this idea that the Romance languages put a definite article in front of every country name. They don’t. Some do require it: “los Estados Unidos,” but in general, no.

The Gambia? The Lebanon? They lost those articles years ago.

“The Netherlands” (with capitalized “The”) is the official designation of that country