the year - 타임 올해의 인물로 배우는 관사, 정관사 the의 매직

<타임>은 해마다 올해의 인물(PERSON OF THE YEAR)을 발표한다. 표지 커버의 인물은 매해 빠뀔 지 몰라도 타이틀은 늘 'PERSON OF THE YEAR'로 같다. 2010년 올해의 인물로 선정된 마크 주커버그도, 2000년 선정된 조지 부시도, 심지어 1964년 올해의 인물(당시엔 MAN OF THE YEAR)이었던 마틴 루터 킹 목사도 모두 PERSON OF THE YEAR 이다. Year 에 정관사 the 가 결합함으로써, the year은 지극히 구체적으로 범위가 좁혀지게 되고, 한편으로 상대성을 뛰게 된다. 즉, '강남스타일'의 전세계적 히트를 등에 업은 싸이(PSY)가 후보에 올라 화제가 되고 있는 2012년 PERSON OF THE YEAR에서 올해(THE YEAR)은 당연히 2012년이다. 2010년에 THE YEAR은 2010년 됨은 물론이다. 수십년전 마틴 루터 킹 목사가 선정되었던 1964년 당시 the year은 1964년이 될 것이다. 당연한 것 아니냐고 반문할 수도 있지만, the year, a year 은 천지차이다. year 앞에 붙은 the의 기능(역할)을 이해하는 것은 상당히 중요하다.

시계바늘을 약 50년 전으로 되돌려 보자.

1964년 마틴 루터 킹 목사를 올해의 인물로 선정하는데 적극적으로 동의한 <타임>지 관계자가 당시의 선정과정을 회고하며 아래와 같이 말했다면, 그의 말 속에서 the year 은 1964년으로 구체화 된다. 비록 그가 2012년에 이 말을 했다고 해도, 1964년이 되는 것이다.

I couldn't think of a better choice for the year than MLK.

* MLK = 마틴 루터 킹

위키페디아에 소개된 PERSON OF THE YEAR 역대 선정자들. 흥미로운 부분은 스티브 잡스가 없다는 점이다. 이는 <타임>이 아무래도 정치 위주의 기사를 다루는 잡지이다 보니 정치인(특히 미국인들)들의 얼굴이 상대적으로 많이 보이는 것과는 대조적이다. 빌 클린턴, 조지 부시, 오바마는 각각 2번씩 선정되었다.

Persons of the Year

Year	Image	Choice		Lifetime	Notes
1927		Charles Lindbergh	USA	1902–1974	Lindbergh was, in May 1927, the first person to fly a plane non-stop from New York City, USA toParis, France.
1928		Walter Chrysler	USA	1875–1940
1929		Owen D. Young	USA	1874–1962	Young chaired a committee which authored theYoung Plan, a program for settlement ofGerman reparations debts after World War I.
1930		Mahatma Gandhi	British Raj	1869–1948	Gandhi was the leader of the Indian independence movement. In 1930, he led theSalt Satyagraha, a 240-mile march to protest the imposition of taxes on salt by the British Raj.
1931		Pierre Laval	France	1883–1945	Laval was a four-time Prime Minister of France.
1932		Franklin D. Roosevelt	USA	1882–1945	Roosevelt won the 1932 US Presidential electionby a landslide, defeating the incumbent, Herbert Hoover.
1933		Hugh Samuel Johnson	USA	1882–1942	Johnson was then the director of the National Recovery Administration, an agency tasked by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to bring industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices.
1934		Franklin D. Roosevelt	USA	1882–1945	Roosevelt was President of the United Statesfrom 1933 to 1945.
1935		Haile Selassie I	Ethiopia	1892–1975	Selassie was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. In October 1935, Italian forces invaded Ethiopia, starting the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
1936		Wallis Simpson	USA	1896–1986	King Edward VIII abdicated his thrones to marry Simpson.
1937		Chiang Kai-shek	Republic of China	1887–1975	At the time, Chiang was Premier of the Republic of China.
		Soong May-ling	Republic of China	1898–2003	At the time, Soong was the wife of Chiang Kai-shek.
1938		Adolf Hitler	Nazi Germany	1889–1945
1939		Joseph Stalin	USSR	1878–1953
1940		Winston Churchill	UK	1874–1965
1941		Franklin D. Roosevelt	USA	1882–1945
1942		Joseph Stalin	USSR	1878–1953
1943		George Marshall	USA	1880–1959	Wrote the Marshall Plan
1944		Dwight D. Eisenhower	USA	1890–1969
1945		Harry S. Truman	USA	1884–1972
1946		James F. Byrnes	USA	1879–1972
1947		George Marshall	USA	1880–1959
1948		Harry S. Truman	USA	1884–1972
1949		Winston Churchill	UK	1874–1965	Man of the half-century
1950		The American fighting-man	USA		Representing Korean War troops
1951		Mohammad Mossadegh	Iran	1882–1967
1952		Elizabeth II	[n 1]	1926–
1953		Konrad Adenauer	West Germany	1876–1967
1954		John Foster Dulles	USA	1888–1959
1955		Harlow Curtice	USA	1893–1962
1956		The Hungarian freedom fighter	Hungary
1957		Nikita Khrushchev	USSR	1894–1971
1958		Charles de Gaulle	France	1890–1970
1959		Dwight D. Eisenhower	USA	1890–1969
1960		American Scientists	USA		Represented by George Beadle, Charles Draper, John Enders, Donald A. Glaser, Joshua Lederberg, Willard Libby, Linus Pauling,Edward Purcell, Isidor Rabi, Emilio Segrè,William Shockley, Edward Teller, Charles Townes, James Van Allen, and Robert Woodward
1961		John F. Kennedy	USA	1917–1963
1962		Pope John XXIII	Holy See/ Italy	1881–1963
1963		Martin Luther King, Jr.	USA	1929–1968
1964		Lyndon B. Johnson	USA	1908–1973
1965		William Westmoreland	USA	1914–2005
1966		Baby Boomers
1967		Lyndon B. Johnson	USA	1908–1973
1968		The Apollo 8astronauts	USA		William Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell
1969		The Middle Americans	USA		Also referred to as the Silent Majority[8]
1970		Willy Brandt	West Germany	1913–1992
1971		Richard Nixon	USA	1913–1994
1972		Richard Nixon	USA	1913–1994
		Henry Kissinger	USA	1923–
1973		John Sirica	USA	1904–1992
1974		King Faisal	Saudi Arabia	1906–1975
1975		American women	USA		Represented by Susan Brownmiller, Kathleen Byerly, Alison Cheek, Jill Conway, Betty Ford,Ella Grasso, Carla Hills, Barbara Jordan, Billie Jean King, Carol Sutton, Susie Sharp, andAddie Wyatt
1976		Jimmy Carter	USA	1924–
1977		Anwar Sadat	Egypt	1918–1981
1978		Deng Xiaoping	People's Republic of China	1904–1997
1979		Ayatollah Khomeini	Iran	1902–1989
1980		Ronald Reagan	USA	1911–2004
1981		Lech Wałęsa	Poland	1943–
1982		The Computer			Machine of the Year
1983		Ronald Reagan	USA	1911–2004
		Yuri Andropov	USSR	1914–1984
1984		Peter Ueberroth	USA	1937–
1985		Deng Xiaoping	People's Republic of China	1904–1997
1986		Corazon C. Aquino	Philippines	1933–2009
1987		Mikhail Gorbachev	USSR	1931–
1988		The EndangeredEarth			Planet of the Year
1989		Mikhail Gorbachev	USSR	1931–	Man of the Decade
1990		George H. W. Bush	USA	1924–
1991		Ted Turner	USA	1938–
1992		Bill Clinton	USA	1946–
1993		The Peacemakers	Palestinian Authority  South Africa  Israel		Represented by Yasser Arafat, F.W. de Klerk,Nelson Mandela, and Yitzhak Rabin
1994		Pope John Paul II	Holy See/ Poland	1920–2005
1995		Newt Gingrich	USA	1943–
1996		David Ho	R.O.C/ USA	1952–
1997		Andrew Grove	Hungary/ USA	1936–
1998		Bill Clinton	USA	1946–	Time Magazine held its first online poll to decide the Person of the Year. Wrestler and activist Mick Foley won with over 50% of votes. Foley was removed from the poll, and the award was given to Clinton and Starr.[9][better source needed]
		Kenneth Starr	USA	1946–
1999		Jeffrey P. Bezos	USA	1964–	See also: Person of the Century
2000		George W. Bush	USA	1946–
2001		Rudolph Giuliani	USA	1944–
2002		The Whistleblowers	USA		Represented by Cynthia Cooper (WorldCom),Coleen Rowley (FBI) and Sherron Watkins(Enron)
2003		The American soldier	USA
2004		George W. Bush	USA	1946–
2005		The Good Samaritans	Ireland  USA		Represented by Bono, Bill Gates, and Melinda Gates
2006		You[10]			Represented by the individual content creator on the World Wide Web
2007		Vladimir Putin[11]	Russia	1952–
2008		Barack Obama[12]	USA	1961–
2009		Ben Bernanke[13]	USA	1953–
2010		Mark Zuckerberg[14]	USA	1984–
2011		The Protester[15]			Representing many global protest movements – for example, the Arab Spring, the Indignants Movement, Tea Party movement and Occupy Movement – as well as protests in Greece,India and Russia, among others

+ Source: Wikipedia