I saw a made-for-TV movie about the Steven Stayner kidnapping [1]. Stayner was kidnapped when he was 7 while walking home from school in Merced, California.
No one knew if he had been kidnapped, murdered, had an accident, or ran away.
There's a creek named Bear Creek that runs through Merced. At one point in the movie someone in law enforcement suggests that they dredge "the Bear Creek" to search for Stayner's body.
That probably sounded fine to most people watching, but it seemed very wrong to me. I lived in Merced or the surrounding countryside from 7 until I went to college, with several years living a block from Bear Creek, and I never heard anyone call it "the Bear Creek". It was always just "Bear Creek" or "The creek".
I once made a list (since lost) of assorted creeks, rivers, lakes, and other prominent geological features around the US and what the locals called them. Some almost always used "the" and some almost always did not. I could not discern any pattern to which did and which did not.
I wonder if a given locality is consistent on this? E.g., if they omit "the" from their local river, will they also omit it from their local lake?
I wonder if intelligence agencies, when sending people trying to pass as natives to someplace to spy, train them on this level of local lingo minutia?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Stayner