"The DOT" or "DOT"

[Scott5114]

As some of you may know, I've been recollecting all of the unique Appalachian dialect from Central West Virginia (which for now, does not technically include the Ohio Valley counties such as Jackson).  One of the unique qualities of what my folks called "Mountain Language" is the distinct use of the "most definite" article "the" (pronounced "thee"), versus a "least definite" article "the" (pronounced "thuh"). 

What is the difference between these? (Oklahoma dialect has both "thee" and "thuh", but usually "thee" is used for emphasis more than anything.)

I'd be interested to read a collected digest sometime of what you'd consider the most important parts of the Appalachian dialect. I have a fictional character I'm writing now who is supposed to have an at least Appalachian-adjacent dialect, so it would be helpful to have some pointers.

[kphoger]

As some of you may know, I've been recollecting all of the unique Appalachian dialect from Central West Virginia (which for now, does not technically include the Ohio Valley counties such as Jackson).  One of the unique qualities of what my folks called "Mountain Language" is the distinct use of the "most definite" article "the" (pronounced "thee"), versus a "least definite" article "the" (pronounced "thuh").

What is the difference between these? (Oklahoma dialect has both "thee" and "thuh", but usually "thee" is used for emphasis more than anything.)

I'd be interested to read a collected digest sometime of what you'd consider the most important parts of the Appalachian dialect. I have a fictional character I'm writing now who is supposed to have an at least Appalachian-adjacent dialect, so it would be helpful to have some pointers.

To follow up on what you've already said...

I hear 'the' pronounced as thee when it would otherwise be pronounced as thuh (i.e., before a consonant sound) in situations like these:

a.  To emphasize that it's the only one of something.  "My sister is thee nurse from midnight till 4 am."  That is, my sister is the one and only nurse on staff during those four hours.  The word is stressed in this type of speech.

b.  To indicate preeminence over all others.  "It is thee restaurant to go to if you're looking for authentic Delaware-style pizza."  That is, there might be other restaurants serving authentic Delaware-style pizza, but none of them compare to this one.  The word is stressed in this type of speech.

c.  When speaking slowly.  "If you're coming up from Sixth Street ... then ... come through thee ... second entrance ... after ... thee ... big blue ... whatever-you-call-it ... thuh big blue dumpster thing."  The word is not stressed in this type of speech.

[Dirt Roads]

As some of you may know, I've been recollecting all of the unique Appalachian dialect from Central West Virginia (which for now, does not technically include the Ohio Valley counties such as Jackson).  One of the unique qualities of what my folks called "Mountain Language" is the distinct use of the "most definite" article "the" (pronounced "thee"), versus a "least definite" article "the" (pronounced "thuh").

What is the difference between these? (Oklahoma dialect has both "thee" and "thuh", but usually "thee" is used for emphasis more than anything.)

To follow up on what you've already said...

I hear 'the' pronounced as thee when it would otherwise be pronounced as thuh (i.e., before a consonant sound) in situations like these:

a.  To emphasize that it's the only one of something.  "My sister is thee nurse from midnight till 4 am."  That is, my sister is the one and only nurse on staff during those four hours.  The word is stressed in this type of speech.

b.  To indicate preeminence over all others.  "It is thee restaurant to go to if you're looking for authentic Delaware-style pizza."  That is, there might be other restaurants serving authentic Delaware-style pizza, but none of them compare to this one.  The word is stressed in this type of speech.

c.  When speaking slowly.  "If you're coming up from Sixth Street ... then ... come through thee ... second entrance ... after ... thee ... big blue ... whatever-you-call-it ... thuh big blue dumpster thing."  The word is not stressed in this type of speech.

Certainly, I've heard the "most definite" (thie) article and the "least definite" article (thuh) in a lot of places around the country, but its not as prevalent in most of Appalachia.

b.  To indicate preeminence over all others.  "It is thee restaurant to go to if you're looking for authentic Delaware-style pizza."  That is, there might be other restaurants serving authentic Delaware-style pizza, but none of them compare to this one.  The word is stressed in this type of speech.

In addition to how "thie" and "thuh" blends properly with the next word (depending upon certain consonants and vowels), they also taught the this preeminence rule (a hard "thie" with emphasis) in English classes (I think was Junior High, but can't quite remember).

[Dirt Roads]

I'd be interested to read a collected digest sometime of what you'd consider the most important parts of the Appalachian dialect. I have a fictional character I'm writing now who is supposed to have an at least Appalachian-adjacent dialect, so it would be helpful to have some pointers.

Most of the online articles are specifically aimed at the Smokey (Smoky) Mountain sub-dialect of a large portion of East Tennessee, much of Western Carolina and a handful of counties in South Carolina and Georgia  The other primary sub-dialect is the Coalfields Dialect, which in addition to Southern West Virginia, Southwestern Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, actually grazes over into many of the far eastern counties of Tennessee (who still want to claim the Smokey Mountain language).  Then there is the "classic" Appalachian Dialect that folks in West Virginia call "Shenandoah Valley Language", which ranges through Northwestern Virginia, the Eastern Panhandle and up into parts of Western Maryand and South-central Pennsylvania.

It's easy to find online information about the Smokey (Smoky) Mountain Language, but more difficult to find information regarding the other two.  If you are more interested in the Coalfields, try looking up "West Virginia Dialect".  Also, the Hillbonics website is a good place to start.  I've had a hard time finding specific information on the "South-uh-western" and the Eastern Kentucky variants of the Coalfields Dialect.

The Central West Virginia dialect that I am focused on is specific to Braxton, Calhoun, Gilmer, Lewis, Roane, and Webster counties, but like extends further west into the Ohio Valley counties and somewhat further east.  But there are other strong pockets as well.  One is in the Blue Ridge section of Western North Carolina (yup, that's different than Western Carolina) and another is the Monongahela sub-dialect that covers North-Central West Virginia, Southwestern Pennsylvania and rural parts of the Northern Panhandle. 

There are big chunk-outs of Appalachian Dialect throughout America, as the language of loggers, miners, oilfields and railroaders was significantly influenced by the origin of those industries in the Appalachian Mountains.  I'm spending way-too-much time trying to integrate the "lingo" with the dialect project, because somehow the "lingo" is still very prevalent in Mountain Language (moreso than other parts of Appalachia).

You said that you have a character in an Appalachian-adjacent area.  One of those areas is Southeast Ohio, considered to be one of the poorest sections of Appalachia.  But somehow, they don't seem to have the thick dialect when many of those folks came from West Virginia and Kentucky.  To that end, folks along the big rivers and in most cities of Appalachia don't have the thick accent, because of the influence of trade partners.  To that end, my folks were adamant that we never speak in dialect or sing in shape-notes, because of how outsiders would view that as being "backwards". 

Fun fact:  so-called Pittsburgese is actually Appalachia Dialect blended into the Slovak and Germanic cultures that surround the steel mill industry.

[wxfree]

This is like going to "the hospital," as if there's only one.  Maybe there is if you're in a small town or rural area, and everyone knows what you mean when you say that.  The Brits say that a person is "in hospital" and the yanks say that he's "in the hospital."  I don't like either.  "In a hospital" works, but I like the term "hospitalized."  I like the last one best, but none of them is very good.

I live in a city of 400k, but I still say things like "going to the grocery store" (there are many grocery stores in town), "going to the bank" (our bank has many branches in town), "going to the drugstore" (there are many drugstores in town), etc.

And it can't just be a matter of how much time you spend there, either.  Because nobody says "When we finally arrived at campground" when referring to a week-long camping trip.  Yes, you could also say that somebody is "encamped" somewhere, but the place of their encampment is "at the campground" or "in the campground" with the word "the" included.

This is interesting.  I'd never really thought about why "in the hospital" bothers me.  I have no problem with going to the store, the bank, the park, or the campground.  I'd go to the hospital to see someone who's in there.  I think the difference is in the reason.  I don't get stored, or storified, in the store.  If I'm in the hospital, it isn't to visit, which is going to the hospital.  If I'm in, I'm being hospitalized.  Being in the hospital isn't like being in the store or in the park.  It's more like being at the house, by which I obviously mean my house (unless I'm visiting you and mean your house).  Saying that referring to being at home also sounds wrong to me.  Being at the house means being at home, which is more like a state than a location, unlike being at the store, bank, or park.  These are places, and activities, but not states.  Being in the hospital is more of a state than a location.  I think it's that distinction, not the article, that bothers me about the term.  The state of being at the house has its own name, being at home.  There's no such term that I know of for being in the hospital.  Other than being hospitalized, which is clunky and sounds pretentious.

I know I overthink things.  I don't try to, it just happens.  To me, the mind is a fascinating place to explore, and unlike a park, it's a place you can explore both regardless and ir-regardless of the weather.  (I tried to type ir-regardless as one word, but my browser won't let me.  I need to find whatever feature fixes that automatically and turn it off.  I don't like not being allowed to intentionally use a wrong word.)

[kphoger]

location → state

at the house → at home
at the office → at work
at the church → at/in church
at the daycare → at/in daycare
at the hospital → in the hospital
at the rehab facility → in rehab

[wxfree]

It's fascinating to see the different ways minds work.  To someone else, all roads lead to Rome.  To me, all roads lead away from Rome (I prefer rural areas over big cities).  I also like to drive, so you could say that all roads lead to roam.

[hbelkins]

THE Ohio State University. 

[kphoger]

The Open.
The Times.

The Brits need to get over themselves already.

[wxfree]

The Open.
The Times.

The Brits need to get over themselves already.

I fixed that.

I hear of The Times on television news as "The Times of London," and I thought that was the title and it was commonly shortened.  I just looked it up, and it isn't.  I hadn't thought about it, but that's a pretty serious title.  New York should have a newspaper called The City to make up for it.  Although we Yanks aren't exactly over ourselves journalistically, as we have The Nation, although The Times still sounds about as pretentious as one can be.  I love newspapers, so I should start one called The Newspaper.  I'll use the same office to produce my medical journal, The Hospital.

[Dirt Roads]

The Brits need to get over themselves already.

Ooh.  Here's another variant for my records.  I'm used to hearing "thie Brits", but folks in Central West Virginia typically say "thuh Brits".  I've never asked why, but I certainly know the real answer.

[gonealookin]

The grammatical principle relevant to what you cite is that if the spelled-out name takes an article, so does the abbreviation. "The National Football League" ---> "The NFL." "Major League Baseball" ---> "MLB" (not "the MLB" in most instances, though a lot of people get it wrong because they see "the NFL" and think it must be the same). Your second set of initialisms includes three entities that don't take "the" before the full name.

For YEARS at the end of his broadcasting career, Vin Scully had to read an ad drop for a sports drink on the Dodgers telecasts, with the drink's slogan.  He said, "It's in the Emm-Ell-Bee.  Is it in you?"  Drove me nuts every time.  I know Vin had to read the copy as written, but I wished he had said at some point, "God F*cking Dammit, Gatorade, could you PLEASE drop the 'the'."

From participating in local discussion groups, our state's DOT is always referred to as "NDOT" in writing (and ENN-dot in speech).

[Dirt Roads]

From participating in local discussion groups, our state's DOT is always referred to as "NDOT" in writing (and ENN-dot in speech).

Similarly, Virginia calls it "VEE-dot".  But sometimes I can't resist saying "Darth VAY-dot"; if in mixed company (ergo, somebody who wants it called the normal way) I'll say "Darth VEE-dot" instead. 

At one point in my career, I was concerned that VDOT was going to step into my world and I would have to eat crow.  Fortunately, the Commonwealth placed my world under VDRPT (and my major client decided that we needed to remain outside of VDRPT jurisdiction for other reasons).

[The_Ginger]

I'd be interested to read a collected digest sometime of what you'd consider the most important parts of the Appalachian dialect. I have a fictional character I'm writing now who is supposed to have an at least Appalachian-adjacent dialect, so it would be helpful to have some pointers.

Most of the online articles are specifically aimed at the Smokey (Smoky) Mountain sub-dialect of a large portion of East Tennessee, much of Western Carolina and a handful of counties in South Carolina and Georgia  The other primary sub-dialect is the Coalfields Dialect, which in addition to Southern West Virginia, Southwestern Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, actually grazes over into many of the far eastern counties of Tennessee (who still want to claim the Smokey Mountain language).  Then there is the "classic" Appalachian Dialect that folks in West Virginia call "Shenandoah Valley Language", which ranges through Northwestern Virginia, the Eastern Panhandle and up into parts of Western Maryand and South-central Pennsylvania.

It's easy to find online information about the Smokey (Smoky) Mountain Language, but more difficult to find information regarding the other two.  If you are more interested in the Coalfields, try looking up "West Virginia Dialect".  Also, the Hillbonics website is a good place to start.  I've had a hard time finding specific information on the "South-uh-western" and the Eastern Kentucky variants of the Coalfields Dialect.

The Central West Virginia dialect that I am focused on is specific to Braxton, Calhoun, Gilmer, Lewis, Roane, and Webster counties, but like extends further west into the Ohio Valley counties and somewhat further east.  But there are other strong pockets as well.  One is in the Blue Ridge section of Western North Carolina (yup, that's different than Western Carolina) and another is the Monongahela sub-dialect that covers North-Central West Virginia, Southwestern Pennsylvania and rural parts of the Northern Panhandle. 

There are big chunk-outs of Appalachian Dialect throughout America, as the language of loggers, miners, oilfields and railroaders was significantly influenced by the origin of those industries in the Appalachian Mountains.  I'm spending way-too-much time trying to integrate the "lingo" with the dialect project, because somehow the "lingo" is still very prevalent in Mountain Language (moreso than other parts of Appalachia).

You said that you have a character in an Appalachian-adjacent area.  One of those areas is Southeast Ohio, considered to be one of the poorest sections of Appalachia.  But somehow, they don't seem to have the thick dialect when many of those folks came from West Virginia and Kentucky.  To that end, folks along the big rivers and in most cities of Appalachia don't have the thick accent, because of the influence of trade partners.  To that end, my folks were adamant that we never speak in dialect or sing in shape-notes, because of how outsiders would view that as being "backwards". 

Fun fact:  so-called Pittsburgese is actually Appalachia Dialect blended into the Slovak and Germanic cultures that surround the steel mill industry.

I had never known this! This is all new information for me.

[Henry]

"Eye Dot", "Kal Trans" and "Wiss Dot" for my three home states.

[kphoger]

For YEARS at the end of his broadcasting career, Vin Scully had to read an ad drop for a sports drink on the Dodgers telecasts, with the drink's slogan.  He said, "It's in the Emm-Ell-Bee.  Is it in you?"  Drove me nuts every time.  I know Vin had to read the copy as written, but I wished he had said at some point, "God F*cking Dammit, Gatorade, could you PLEASE drop the 'the'."

And, see, my takeaway from your story is that calling it "the MLB" is so completely normal that even Gatorade ads do it.

[bulldog1979]

For YEARS at the end of his broadcasting career, Vin Scully had to read an ad drop for a sports drink on the Dodgers telecasts, with the drink's slogan.  He said, "It's in the Emm-Ell-Bee.  Is it in you?"  Drove me nuts every time.  I know Vin had to read the copy as written, but I wished he had said at some point, "God F*cking Dammit, Gatorade, could you PLEASE drop the 'the'."

And, see, my takeaway from your story is that calling it "the MLB" is so completely normal that even Gatorade ads do it.

I would say that "the MLB" is correct, and dropping the article is wrong. The grammatical rule is that if an abbreviation can be pronounced as a word, then no article, but if it's pronounce as a series of letters, then the article is used. So "the FHWA", but just "MDOT". The one situation where the article isn't used is the abbreviations for schools, so just "NMU", "MTU", etc.

(As for a certain institution of higher learning in the state to the south of me, I will not subscribe to their use of the article, let alone a capitalized article as part of their name. The enabling legislation creating that school is inconsistent, and the insistence is pretentious. They can follow the general rule everyone else uses.)

[kphoger]

I think it boils down to this:  people who insist on 'MLB' with no definite article are trying to pretend that 'Major League Baseball' is just some general thing akin to 'pro sports' or 'welding school' or whatever, rather than admitting what it actually is:  the name of a sports league.  Players aren't merely drafted into 'major league baseball' (lowercase) but into a league with a proper name.  'MLB' is the baseball equivalent of football's 'NFL'.

[1995hoo]

I think it boils down to this:  people who insist on 'MLB' with no definite article are trying to pretend that 'Major League Baseball' is just some general thing akin to 'pro sports' or 'welding school' or whatever, rather than admitting what it actually is:  the name of a sports league.  Players aren't merely drafted into 'major league baseball' (lowercase) but into a league with a proper name.  'MLB' is the baseball equivalent of football's 'NFL'.

But it's not the same sort of name. You're the one "pretending" that it is. As you yourself appear to acknowledge, the full name is "Major League Baseball," whereas the other league you reference is "the National Football League." Similarly, we have "the National Basketball Association" and "the National Hockey League"—and, within baseball itself, we have "the National League" and "the American League." The difference is that all of those others take "the" in the full form, and it carries over to the abbreviation. Nobody says, for example, "NFL was founded in Canton, Ohio."

The Chicago Manual of Style's online FAQ agrees with me, incidentally (and I am mildly amused that they didn't correct the questioner's bad grammar in "me and my editor"). Consider the first example. "The National Football League comprises thirty-one teams." (Certainly that narrows down when they wrote the answer, huh?) Most normal people wouldn't say "The Major League Baseball comprises thirty teams." "The" is not part of MLB's full name.

Q. I hope you can resolve a dispute between me and my editor. After introducing an acronym, e.g., "Bureau of Land Management," to "BLM," I like to drop the "the" in introducing it. For example, I think the least awkward way is to say "BLM is charged with the oversight of . . ." as opposed to "The BLM is . . ." Do you have any rule that covers this issue?

A. Generally, if "the" is part of the name, but not absorbed by the abbreviation, use "the" as if the abbreviation were spelled out:

The NFL comprises thirty-one teams.

NFL games rarely get postponed owing to inclement weather.

In its ninety-two years, the NAACP has been a cornerstone of American civil liberties organizations.

NAACP membership is open to all who can afford it.

Advertisers for AT&T made a splash by incorporating the wah-wah pedal into recent advertisements for high-bandwidth cable.

Do you listen to the BBC?

In other words, use "the" unless the abbreviation is used as an adjective or unless the abbreviation spelled out wouldn't take a definite article (as is the case for American Telephone and Telegraph, though I think the company has more or less dropped the antecedent to its initials).

The BLM's own documentation demonstrates this usage.

(emphasis added to the penultimate paragraph)

[kphoger]

In other words, use "the" unless the abbreviation is used as an adjective or unless the abbreviation spelled out wouldn't take a definite article (as is the case for American Telephone and Telegraph, though I think the company has more or less dropped the antecedent to its initials).

And yet I hear things like "over at DoD" or "confirmed with DoJ" or whatever all the time, even from major news outlets who are apparently familiar with manuals of style.

Moreover, the Department of Defense often refers to itself as "DoD" with no definite article.  See, for example, how that agency describes the responsibilities of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs:

The ATSD(PA):

a. Is the principal spokesperson for DoD and responsible for ensuring a free flow of information to the news media, general public, internal audiences of DoD, and other applicable forums through official DoD social media accounts managed by OSD and DoD Components, in accordance with DoDD 5122.05.

I just don't think it's as clear-cut as you or the Chicago Manual of Style make it out to be.  Believe me, I'd love for language to be clear-cut on any number of things, but it generally just isn't.

[1995hoo]

Government agencies often wrongfully think they are exempt from normal rules. Surely we can all agree that just because a government agency says something doesn't make it right.

(The FDA, for example, wrongly calls itself just "FDA." The Supreme Court, for one, ignores that whenever it refers to that agency.)

Trying to restrain myself from commenting that nobody is required to respect how a government agency "self-identifies"....

[kphoger]

Surely we can all agree that just because a government agency says something doesn't make it right.

Sure, OK.  But my point is that 'MLB' isn't the example that breaks the rule.  All language rules are, after all, descriptive at their core, and it's OK to admit that a rule doesn't necessarily cover 100% of use cases.

It isn't wrong for Tony DiNozzo to say, 'We're with NCIS' (no definite article), if that's the way people who work in and with the real Naval Criminal Investigative Service actually refer to it.  It isn't wrong for Politico to refer to 'a spokesperson for DOJ' (no definite article), if that's the way people who work in and with the Department of Justice actually refer to it.

And, when hundreds of sports commentators and millions of fans refer to 'the MLB' (definite article), it strikes me as rather too proscriptive to say they're all wrong.  Better, in my opinion, to just allow for the rule to be not totally ironclad.

[wxfree]

Those abbreviations bother me.  They sound more like nicknames than abbreviations, because they aren't used like abbreviations.  The DOD is the Department of Defense.  "DOD" or "DOJ" is more like a nickname, similar to "Justice" referring to the department of it, or "Main Justice," referring to the office of the attorney general and his deputies and assistants, rather than the prosecutors' offices.

On the other hand, I have no problem calling the Texas Department of Transportation "TxDOT," because, to me, that's a nickname, not an abbreviation.  An abbreviation would be "tee ecks dee oh tee" rather than "tex dot."

Reading TxDOT documents, written in legalese, the Texas Transportation Commission is "commission" and the Texas Department of Transportation is "department."  Those short forms are established thusly:

"The Texas Transportation Commission (commission)"

"The Texas Department of Transportation (department)"

But then, in the document, it says "IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED by the commission that..." and "Transportation Code, §201.607, requires the department to adopt..."  This shows that those definite articles are not part of the short form, and have to be written in.  "Commission" means "Texas Transportation Commission" and not "the Texas Transportation Commission."  When the document makes reference to the commission, the definite article is not part of the short form, so it has to be added.  In a similar vein, these days, in my area, the city council is referred to as "council" rather than "the council."  I don't know if it's correct, but that bothers me.  There's no reason to replace a definite article and single word with a short form consisting of the same word. You don't say "court has found him not guilty" to mean that the court has found him not guilty.

In official documents, if the Department of Defense is written as "DOD" that may be defined somewhere else in the document.

The following definitions apply to usage this document:  "DOD": The United States Department of Defense

There, the article is a part of the short form, and definitively is not used before the abbreviation.  On the other hand, there is no "the department" in the full official name.

That last point suddenly changes how I feel about "DOD."  There is no "The Department of Defense."  "DOD" is just a shorter form of the abbreviation "USDoD."  I still hate "Justice" and "council."  And I'm still not a fan of "in the hospital."

This topic is a mess.  It's almost as bad as Star Trek: Enterprise and whether the ship is big enough to store a supply of definite articles.

- mental note: the forum does allow "thusly"

[Takumi]

Nobody says "the NASCAR", but "the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing" makes a lot more sense than "the Major League Baseball". Though for a bit in the 1970s the Commissioner's Office just referred to it as "baseball". (Note that the link also contains the culturally insensitive Braves and then-Indians logos from back then as well. Unfortunately I haven't had much luck finding that "baseball" logo on its own.

[Molandfreak]

The Open.
The Times.

The Brits need to get over themselves already.

Related to the discussion upthread, the Brits don't use a definite article before "hospital." "We're going to hospital" is correct British English.