The AM Forum

I have a pronoun rules question:    For the longest time I have referred  to the League as "the League" or   "the ARRL" -   but never as "ARRL."     The League refers to themselves as "ARRL".   "ARRL says this" or  "ARRL did that."


***  On their website today:  "A visit to ARRL....   On Thursday, June 8, 2023, ARRL  headquarters in Newington....   For more information about visiting ARRL HQ"


So why does "League did this"  sound wrong?  "The League did this" sounds right.    

"The Navy did this." Sounds right -     So then why does "Army vs: Navy was a good game" sound correct?

"The Titanic sank"  sounds OK to me but "Titanic sank"  sounds odd.

"The Tesla is a great company" sounds odd, but "Tesla is a great company"  sounds OK

 "The FBI,"  "The CIA,"   "the DEP,"  and "the Highway Patrol,"  all sound FB with "The."      How come no one calls me "The K1JJ?"  or "The Tom?"  

So why doesn't "The ARRL" follow the same rules?  I will always call them "THE ARRL" no matter what rules apply.

Any English majors know the rules here?   When is "The" supposed to be used or not?

T

You could always ask The Tron, or just ask Tron.

In grammar, "the" is considered the definite article
The definite article is used with singular and plural nouns. It is used both with countable nouns and uncountable nouns

Also can be used to make definite or specific reference to a person or a thing that has already been referred to.
Further,  "definite article" is one that introduces a noun phrase and implies that the thing mentioned has already been mentioned, or is common knowledge, or is about to be defined.

You may ask:
Countable nouns: Refer to things that can be counted as individual units, such as "book," "chair," or "apple." These nouns can be used with numbers and articles such as "a," "an," or "the." They also have plural forms, such as "books," "chairs," or "apples."

Uncountable nouns: Refer to things that cannot be counted as individual units, such as "water," "rice," or "knowledge." These nouns usually do not have a plural form and cannot be used with numbers or indefinite articles like "a" or "an," but they can be used with some quantifiers like "some," "any," or "much.

Ex:
American Radio Relay League Activities:
Starting tomorrow, the League will start raising pink rabbits.
People in the League make lots of money.
The League is valuable to amateur radio.

A thing to remember is that grammar has to flow. There are grammatical rules that have been developed over the years. But, here in the U.S. generic grammar rules can vary from state to state or depending on what part of the U.S. you're from.

Come to Jersey; we instill great grammar and fluid punctuation, and capital letters are an option.

Not making a thread hijack, but:

All my life it was The Ukraine.  Not Ukraine.

My wife has a PhD in English.

"The" is correct in cases that need the "Definite Article."

73DG

Thanks for the explanation, Pete -

I must admit after reading your reply five times, I still don't understand why the correct usage is "ARRL"   rather than  "The ARRL."

So you're saying that: "Starting tomorrow, the ARRL [or the League] will start raising pink rabbits"  is correct?

What specific [definate article] rule is being used here?  Or is either way correct - whatever sounds good to us?



This next example is glaring - why is it not like the ARRL example? They are both companies........ "IBM is big." (correct)       "The IBM is big."  (wrong)    


"The Marines are bad-ass"  (correct if plural)            "Marines are bad-ass"    (correct if singular)


I think "The Clark" was an English major and knows, but is sandbagging..  


dazed and confused,

T

It doesn't take much to start a thread here, does it?  ;D

As someone who's always been fond of language and its usage, I came to the conclusion long ago that there is simply not sufficient granularity in the rules of English grammar to cover all instances. Unlike mathematics, the English language has an unavoidable seat-of-the-pants element to it, however small.
Generally, you can't append the definite article to a proper name, and since the League, according to their website, is properly called ARRL, that's the only truly correct way to refer to it.
From the website: "Founded in 1914 by Hiram Percy Maxim as The American Radio Relay League, ARRL is a noncommercial organization of radio amateurs."
So, it appears that while the definite article was once an official part of the name, now it is not. In the original case, the definite article would have been capitalized, since it was part of the name. On the other hand, if we do want to append the definite article to today's ARRL - not technically correct but still not a grammatical catastrophe - we absolutely must not capitalize the article, since it's not truly a part of the name.

It seems the ARRL uses either on their website, in addition to using a preceding "the" when using a non-acronym.
https://www.arrl.org/about-arrl

My wifes side of the family is part Ukrainian.  i recall being promptly corrected when calling Ukraine, the Ukraine.

I’ve worked for all the traditional big three US television networks: 

At CBS, NBC, and ABC.

However, I’ve never worked in England for THE BBC!
Apparently “THE” matters.

Long live :
T  H  E

The last three posts are right on target.   I'm beginnning to get it.

Jeff, as you said,  CBS, NBC, and ABC do not require "THE" to sound correct.   But BBC does require "THE."   I think this is proof that there really is no concrete rule here -  and using "THE" or not depends on how everyone has been saying it over time.  Something akin to words pronounced with silent letters.  Or accents.  Ever hear an Irish ham [trying] to talk with a USA deep-south ham?  

English (IE, grunting thru the throat and mouth) can sometimes be a very JS [jockstrap] skill compared to science.

T

Grammar conventions often change over time, without actually changing the rules; it's just the preferences of the day that change. Comma usage is one of the best examples. In the days of the classic literary greats, like Dickens, prolific use of commas was the custom, but today's writers tend to go minimalist. In the style of the 1800's, our flag was red, white, and blue. Nowadays, it's often compressed to a hurried red white and blue. While neither approach is more correct than the other, the comma, it seems, gets left behind in today's impatient rush to get where we're going in the least time. On the other hand, one could alternatively say "red and white and blue" and still be grammatically legal, but it's about as comfortable as a steel-wool pad in your shorts.

I'm an emphatic supporter of the use of the Harvard/Oxford/serial comma and believe it serves a critical role in writing.

For example:

1) "For sale was a transceiver, HT and antenna, and a microphone."

2) "For sale was a transceiver, HT and antenna and a microphone."

Without the comma after antenna, the microphone becomes part of the HT package.

This is why I always ask sellers at hamfests where they intended to put the comma when they describe what they're selling. The flummoxed reactions are worth it.

I always refer to it as the 'ARRgghhL'!

"Joe's wife didn't want to run over to the store to pick up a gallon of milk, so Joe ran over himself."  
"Oh, so you like to shoot? I shot myself many years ago."  
"No pets please."  (I'm quite sure that many pets do please, actually.)

I have always thought the same.  I like commas.  If the sentence isn't clear, then we ought to be able to modify it.... with a comma, in this case.

Another one that irks me is all the effort to write, " i.e.," or "e.g.,"     I just type IE, and it does the job.

T

To further complicate this discussion, the people down in Newington stealthily changed the name of their organization.  It used to be the American Radio Relay League.  But, in an effort to change the way people perceive the outfit, and to make it appear more hip and groovy to modern young people, it became ARRL, The National Organization for Amateur Radio.  I suppose they are trying to get away from the old pictures showing some  fat grandfatherly fellow pounding away at a straight key filling up stacks of yellow radiogram forms.  Yes, that should make kids flock to us in droves.
Therefore if IBM is just that and not "the IBM" as described earlier, then ARRL should be just that.  Of course we superannuated old guys will continue to look at it and see the "relay league" part and persist in calling it "the ARRL".  Eventually, we'll end up improving the local ground conductivity and the droves of new kids will come of age and use the new hip and groovy nomenclature.
When I go to a hamfest lately and see what we all, this scribe included, look like, I find it difficult to believe that the 14 year old kid I used to be would look around and say to himself, "Yeah, I want to be like that..."  It'll take more than a change in the logo to bring new blood into the herd.
73 de Norm W1ITT

For organizational acronyms, Americans usually use THE FBI when the letters are individually pronounced, but just NASA when we pronounce the acronym as a whole. Usually.

The NASA launch site is owned by NASA. NASA's launch site is guarded by the FBI. The FBI guards the NASA launch site.

Many moons ago I worked at NESTEF (Naval Electronics Systems Test and Evaluation Facility) and a new CO (CDR Winkel) tried to convert everything to THE NESTEF.
There was spirited opposition to this, including underground publication of a Winkelgram saying the facility's name would be changed to Worst Instrumentation, Navigation, Kryptographic, and Electronics Laboratory"...

Commas - The newly ordained priest gave thanks to his parents, Mary and Jesus.

 

Well, here's a quick English lesson ;):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

Weird Al's version of Saturday morning's Schoolhouse Rock
Conjunction Junction what's your Function.