Take the 2-minute tour ×  Possibly two questions in here: Are
these sentence constructions logical, and if they are, why are
they different?  I swam across the Ocmulgee River. I swam across
the Pacific Ocean. I swam across the Red Sea. I swam across Lake
Winnipeg.  I can't think of a way of phrasing the lake example
while using an article with a proper noun. I thought at first it
was because Lake Winnipeg is different; it's generic portion
(the "Lake") comes first and the name of that body comes second,
but I swam across Falls Lake is the same.  Yet the sentence I
swam across the lake sounds right to me. ...Why?  share|improve
this question Sometimes we do. "I swam across the Great Salt
Lake". –  Peter Shor Jan 5 '13 at 19:31 add comment  3 Answers
up vote 14 down vote accepted  I'd say you are correct about the
placement of the generic word being the reason for using (or not
using) 'the' , and all your examples are phrased correctly.
Notice that 'Falls' is different also in that it is a plural.
Edit: I hav