Reported nearly four years ago for 3.4.3, original subject was
\#H3013: NetHack grammar bug when taking unpaid fruit from chest
Player used OPTIONS=fruit:Quorn and the capitalized value confuses
the() into thinking it's a proper name which shouldn't be preceded
by an article, resulting in "Quorn will cost you N zorkmids" when
removing it from a chest in a shop, followed by "X - a Quorn (unpaid)"
as it went into inventory. It is a product name, but when used as a
fruit it shouldn't be treated as a proper name. (Quorn is a meat
substitute rather than anything related to fruit.) Teach the() about
named-fruits, so that we'll get "The Quorn will cost you N zorkmids."
Unfortunately, it means that someone who names their fruit after a
proper name used by the program, for example Mjollnir, can probably
induce other poorly worded messages (about the item rather than the
named-fruit). the() is used all over the place and all it has to work
with is text, not the object whose formatted name produced that text.
I looked through a bunch of old cvs log messages last night, and
spotted one I wrote (in objnam.c) a dozen years ago where I suggested
forcing named-fruit values into lower case as they're being set up.
I don't remember that, but if we'd done it, this bug would have been
avoided.