The nature, distribution and significance of Nigerian newspapers misuse of the English Article THE' are isolated and discussed in this article. Spanning the period January, February and March, 1986, a total of 78 lead articles (including front and back page news items) from seven Nigerian private and government newspapers are scanned. The results show that The National Concord has the highest manifested frequency of occurrence of the misuse of the definite article "THE" in its lead, including front and back page stories. (There were 78 copies of the paper in three months of publication and not less than 78 errors). The National Concord was followed by the New Nigerian newspaper which in 78 issues had 49 errors of the misapplication of the English elliptical rule. The paper with the lowest incidence of the misuse of THE1 was the Daily Star. It was virtually free of the error in question (only 2 errors in 78 issues). The position of occurrence of the linguistic error discussed and their distribution, have a number of implications for the training of the African journalist and for his mastery of the intricate art of writing for effective newspaper communication.
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