On 28 Aug 2006 at 10:28, John Howell wrote: > At 6:31 AM -0400 8/28/06, dhbailey wrote: > >Chuck Israels wrote: > >>Hiro, > >> > >>I am trying to get the "feel" of this, and I keep coming up with and > >>"The....." as sounding right in English. But we do say "Boston > >>University", for whatever reason, as in, "The faculty and students > >>of Boston University...." > >> > > > >But we would say "The Boston University String Quartet" which is what > >I think the CD producer was suggesting for the Hiro's trio. > > Universities may not be the best examples, since a lot of it is pure > tradition and has nothing to do with logic. It's "Indiana > University," but "The Ohio State University." Tradition. (And there > is no "University of Indiana," while "Ohio University" is a liberal > arts school in Athens!)
In the case of "The Boston University String Quartet" the "the" applies to "string quartet" and "Boston University" is an adjective specifying exactly which string quartet. In the case of Ohio State, I think it is used both ways, though the university itself styles it with the definite article. The other examples have nothing at all to do with articles. In Illinois, there's University of Illinois but also Illinois State University (and then Northern, Southern (two campuses), Eastern and Western). With the question of definite articles, it's important to distinguish which part of the phrase the article applies to. In Hiro's example, I'd be happy with either way. Then there's Handel's famous oratorio. . . -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
