The article 'the' is used when talking about monuments, the White House, the Houses of Parliament, so why is it not used when speaking about Big Ben in London?
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2Oh but it is. "The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster — officially named Saint Stephen's Tower — is commonly known as the Big Ben." – RegDwigнt Oct 08 '18 at 14:32
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1Welcome to EL&U. I believe you will find the answer in Use of definite article before phrases like Heathrow Airport, Hyde Park, Waterloo Station, Edgware Road and Parliament Square; also see e.g. Definite article with proper nouns, titles followed by a common noun, Definite article before schools, colleges, and universities, or Use of the article “the” with proper nouns. – choster Oct 08 '18 at 14:47
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"The article 'the' is used when talking about monuments", I don't think so. How about "I'm going to visit the Palace of Westminster" vs "I'm going to visit Westminster Palace." – Zebrafish Oct 09 '18 at 04:40
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@RegDwigнt I'd be surprised if the author of that web page is British (unless it's a typo). I've lived all my life in the UK and never heard either the tower or the bell referred to as the Big Ben. The website is also out of date, the tower was officially renamed The Elizabeth Tower in 2012, although it's still called Big Ben (without the definite article) informally. – BoldBen Oct 09 '18 at 04:43
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@BoldBen so. All of that makes you take my comment seriously, how? Man, I swear. Those Brits and their complete lack of any sense of humour. I should have added a smiley or five just for them. My bad. Won't happen again. – RegDwigнt Oct 09 '18 at 14:40
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For the record: this question is utterly ridiculous. It's a name. Just learn it by heart like you would any other name. This is akin to asking "why is Jim's name not Jack". Or "why is your name alango and not thelango". Or "why is the Beautiful Square called the Red Square in English". There simply is no why, and even if there were, it wouldn't matter. The name is still Jim, and that's the end of it. That's what everyone is using, and so that's what you have to use. Learn it by heart and call it a day. That's what I actually wanted to say. But this popup here told me to be nice instead. – RegDwigнt Oct 09 '18 at 14:43
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Sorry @RegDwigнt We've been exposed to so many of you guys with an irony deficiency that we tend to believe you're all being serious all the time. Not only that but without inflection humour is often not obvious, as I've found to my cost on Stack Exchange on other occasions:-) – BoldBen Oct 09 '18 at 22:44
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@BoldBen no worries. As much as I can't hide sarcasm as soon as I speak up, as much I can't bring one bit of it across as soon as I put pen to paper. But that's par for the course on the Web, of course, so wevs. Though maybe for future reference, as soon as you see "RegDwight:" anywhere at all, you might as well replace it with "Devil's Advocate:" before reading on. That's quite a handy tip, actually. – RegDwigнt Oct 10 '18 at 18:28
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The difference is in anthropomorphization. Big Ben used to be the name of the huge bell atop St. Stephen's tower, but eventually became the proper name of the whole structure. We only rarely talk about 'the Ted' or 'the Marsha'. Instead, we use the definite article 'the' to convey 'properness' to something that might be otherwise be difficult to distinguish. See: 'the White House' vs. 'a White House'. Big Ben doesn't need that treatment to distinguish itself.
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1Big Ben has never been the official name of the tower, just the most commonly used one. It used to be called The Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament until 2012 until it was renamed The Elizabeth Tower in honour of Queen Elizabeth the second. Apparently Victorian journalists called it St Stephen's Tower but this was never official either. Follow this link and scroll down to Is it called St Stephen's Tower, the Clock Tower or the Elizabeth Tower?. This site is as official as it gets! – BoldBen Oct 09 '18 at 04:54