Yes, the determiner “the” seems to be disappearing from our writing and speech at an accelerated rate than anticipated. Who or what to blame? Well, it’s not clear yet. Easy suspects are texting, instant messaging, etc. But that sort of hypothesis will be simplistic, as this Language Log article suggests. As for me, if you point out that I have skipped a determiner in this post, my response: ‘Tis the trend, dude.