While I wouldn't dare to say that this is a 'rule', I would say that the definite article the is generally used before mass / uncountable nouns when you are referring to a specific instance of that noun.
In your example, you are referring to the Inventory and stock list amount, rather than, say, the purchase amount, or the sales amount, or the amount of your salary.
Similarly, you might say:
The twenty people on the course - as distinct from people in general (no article), or the millions of people not on the course.
The hospital staff - as distinct from The university staff
The river water - as distinct from water in general (no article), or from The lake water.
In the present-day style of the US Navy (and as far as I can tell also the Royal Navy, though I cannot find a suitable link), the definite article is inserted only when giving the type of vessel— never directly before the vessel's name itself. Thus, the publicity piece entitled “Nimitz Arrives Home” opens with
More than 3,000 Sailors on board the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz …
but subsequent references are bare:
While at sea, Nimitz completed approximately 374 launches and recoveries …
"I am very proud…" said Capt. Jeff Ruth, commanding officer of Nimitz.
In vernacular English the article is both prevalent and rather longstanding in use. Early in Shakespeare's Macbeth, the first witch tells a tale:
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
Or consider the innumerable examples in Purchas His Pilgrimes, a 1625 book "contayning a history of the world, in sea voyages & lande-travells by Englishmen & others," at least six of which lie in this excerpt:
Why this became conventional in English is difficult to say. Perhaps it became natural because the London would clearly refer to something named after bare London— meaning the city— General Slocum was a disaster, but nothing like the General Slocum. Many large or important physical objects and features idiomatically take the article, and a ship big or important enough to take a name might be expected to do so. But articles are highly idiosyncratic; we weekend on the Isle of Wight but on Isle Royale, we sail on the Great Bear Lake though on Lake Ontario, and even climb up the Matterhorn yet up Mont Cervin— the very same mountain, just known by several names.
Proper nouns are particularly twitchy, for not only are names themselves rarely logical (e.g. the people who call themselves Nederlanders we call the Dutch; the people who call themselves Deutsche we call Germans), but the entities they represent may have a preferred “house” style that differs from the styles preferred by other substantially similar entities. Elsewhere I provided the examples of
She is a professor at The Ohio State University. She received her Ph.D. from The George Washington University, and was prepared at The Lawrenceville School.
She is a professor at Kansas State University. She received her Ph.D. from George Mason University, and was prepared at Darrow School.
She is a professor at the University of Arizona. She received her Ph.D. from the College of Charleston, and was prepared at the Milton Hershey School.
Related questions include the following:
- When to use a definite article in the name of a ship
- Using the definite article before a country/state name
- Why use “the” for oceans/seas/rivers etc. but not lakes?
- Use of definite article before phrases like Heathrow Airport, Hyde Park, Waterloo Station, Edgware Road and Parliament Square
- Why 'The' is used?
- Should “the” ever be dropped from the beginning of a name/title?
- Definite article with proper nouns, titles followed by a common noun
- Document names and proper nouns/definite articles
- Definite article before schools, colleges, and universities
Best Answer
Truth, or eternal truth, encompasses everything that is true in the Universe, under God, etc.
When, however, one is asked, or forced, or proclaims, to speak the truth, it is always a portion of that big old truth; a segment pertaining to the matter at hand. It is the truth about something. About something. Some thing.
The (somewhat comical) line from John Keats' poem that goes "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" implies that all that is true in the Universe is beautiful, and vice versa: but even if it were, in fact, true, you would still have to be immortal, or nearly so, in your physical form, to speak all of it.
(Keats would have been correct, or nearly so, had he said "harmony" rather than "beauty," but that is besides the point).
The oath one takes in the courtroom in the United States and some other, less advanced, countries, "Do you solemnly (swear/affirm) that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, (so help you God/under pains and penalties of perjury)?" is really not a request to speak ALL of it (which would take an eternity and then some to accomplish), but only the truth that is pertinent to the case.
Speaking truthfully, on the other hand, is less restrictive. Philosophically speaking.