From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Fri Feb 23 13:20:59 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 23 Feb 2001 21:20:35 -0000 Received: (qmail 14285 invoked from network); 23 Feb 2001 21:17:17 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 23 Feb 2001 21:17:17 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta05-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.45) by mta1 with SMTP; 23 Feb 2001 21:17:16 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.252.12.173]) by mta05-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.02.27 201-229-119-110) with SMTP id <20010223211714.DJEG272.mta05-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew>; Fri, 23 Feb 2001 21:17:14 +0000 To: , "lojban" Subject: RE: [lojban] RE:su'u Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 21:16:20 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <3A9443AD.BF14ED52@bilkent.edu.tr> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" > Rather off-topic, here's an acronymical conundrum I set my students: > > Why do UN and IRA take a definite article, while UNESCO and ETA do not? > > Some of the students got it: none of my colleagues did. > > co'o mi'e robin. Presumably your explanation is that the acronyms don't take the definite article and the initialisms do, but not all initialisms do -- e.g. IBM, BT (British Telecom), MIT, ITV (Independent TV), NBC, ABC, CNN. In expanded form, NBC, ABC and CNN might be expected to occur with _the_, so the explanation seems not to be that the _the_ is carried over from the expanded form. The the-lessness of acronyms might be more rigidly rule governed (_The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries_ becomes plain _(*the) MAF_. --And.