"The DOT" or "DOT"

[The_Ginger]

When referring to a Department of Transportation, would you refer to it as "The WVDOT (West Virginia Department of Transportation)," or just "WVDOT (West Virginia Department of Transportation)?"

What do you think?

[kphoger]

Ahead of the holiday weekend, the DOT just released the latest travel estimates.

Ahead of the holiday weekend, WVDOT just released the latest travel estimates.

[The_Ginger]

Ahead of the holiday weekend, the DOT just released the latest travel estimates.

Ahead of the holiday weekend, WVDOT just released the latest travel estimates.

Thank you much!

[Dirt Roads]

When referring to a Department of Transportation, would you refer to it as "The WVDOT (West Virginia Department of Transportation)," or just "WVDOT (West Virginia Department of Transportation)?"

What do you think?

Sorry, I still can't resist.



Donuts.  Is there anything they can't do?  Especially when it comes to our beloved Division of Highways.

[The_Ginger]

Division of Highways.

Having a Division of Highways dedicated to roads seems smart. Instead of having the DOT maintain the roads, the DOH maintains the roads, while the DOT works on all transportation, including rail, air, and roads.

I don't know why the acronym is WVDOH though. It could just as easily be WVDH, and old signs show that it used to be like that.

(Taken from H. B. Elkins's Old Road Signs in WV page, found here.)

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm not a Southern California native so phrasing something with "the" at the beginning doesn't seem linguistically correct.

[kphoger]

I'm not a Southern California native so phrasing something with "the" at the beginning doesn't seem linguistically correct.

the NFL
the NAACP
the USSR

but

ESPN
GEICO
UPS

That last one makes me ask:  do you refer to the post office as "USPS" or "the USPS"?

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm not a Southern California native so phrasing something with "the" at the beginning doesn't seem linguistically correct.

the NFL
the NAACP
the USSR

but

ESPN
GEICO
UPS

That last one makes me ask:  do you refer to the post office as "USPS" or "the USPS"?

To honest with you I haven't even been a to a Post Office in about a decade so I haven't put much that thought into it.

[1995hoo]

I'm not a Southern California native so phrasing something with "the" at the beginning doesn't seem linguistically correct.

the NFL
the NAACP
the USSR

but

ESPN
GEICO
UPS

That last one makes me ask:  do you refer to the post office as "USPS" or "the USPS"?

Heh. I say "the post office."

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.

Some government agencies, notably the FDA and the EPA, wrongly think that rule doesn't apply to them.

With that said, when the initialism is pronounced as a word it seems to change things. "VDOT," for example, is generally pronounced as "vee-dot" ("dot" as in "dot-com" or the like). If it is pronounced as letters, generally that doesn't happen—I normally hear people say "the DOT" with "DOT" as three letters. I can think of at least one situation, a reference to a federal statute, where I pronounce the initialism as four letters and I use "the" before it, but a colleague pronounces it like a word and doesn't use "the."

[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").  Since there is also a predilection for the King James Version of Early Modern English (EModE) in Central Appalachia whereby the old word "thee" was still commonly used back in my days, right now I am using the notation "thie" to identify usage of the "most definite" article. 


Now, back to the topic.  My recollection is that folks say "thie D.O.T." but also say "thuh D.O.H.".  And back in my day, it was always "thuh State Road Commission".

For the record, my hometown in Putnam County was in between "Mountain Language" and the "Coalfields Dialect" used in Southern West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky and Southwestern Virginia.  Therefore, my use of the dialect is mixed at times and I don't always know the correct version for either twist.  That might be the case here, as well.

[Dirt Roads]

I don't know why the acronym is WVDOH though. It could just as easily be WVDH, and old signs show that it used to be like that.

(Taken from H. B. Elkins's Old Road Signs in WV page, found here.)

Great find!  The State Road Commission became the Department of Highways (WVDH) back in 1970. 

[kphoger]

the NFL
the NAACP
the USSR

but

ESPN
GEICO
UPS

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.

So you would say something like "Wyatt Crenshaw was drafted to MLB from Colorado Christian University"?

[The_Ginger]

Now, back to the topic.  My recollection is that folks say "thie D.O.T." but also say "thuh D.O.H.".  And back in my day, it was always "thuh State Road Commission".

This is very neat! I never knew that, but reflecting on my dialect, I can see a difference.

[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.

My state's highway department is Tex Dot.  That one's easy.  The driver license office is the DPS, or you can mislabel it as the DMV if you mistakenly think that Texas is like every other state.  I mention these because the DMV, which handles vehicle registrations and permits (which for most of my life were handled by the highway department, and we didn't have a DMV) is now branding itself as TxDMV.  It's the same format as TxDOT, but there's no good way to say it.  Is it tee ecks dee emm vee, which just makes it longer and take more effort to say, or is it something like tex dimv, which is just stupid?

[Dirt Roads]

Now, back to the topic.  My recollection is that folks say "thie D.O.T." but also say "thuh D.O.H.".  And back in my day, it was always "thuh State Road Commission".

This is very neat! I never knew that, but reflecting on my dialect, I can see a difference.

You should have the "thie's" and "thuh's" more naturally than I do, if you have picked up much of your grandparents dialect (assuming they are also from Jackson County).  And you are in the weird part of the country where you probably say "APP-uh-lat-chun" Mountains but also say that you are from "APP-uh-LAY-chuh".  I picked that up where I grew up in Putnam County, but some folks in the Charleston area are strictly Coalfields dialect and say they are from "APP-up-lat-chuh".

[formulanone]

If you say "the" in a place that doesn't say "the", you will be murderlized; or worse yet, supposedly taunted, have cassette tapes thrown at you, and your plaque immediately removed from the local hall/walk of fame/distinction/medicine.

So at least half of our membership claims, so take it with a deer lick of salt.

[The_Ginger]

If you say "the" in a place that doesn't say "the", you will be murderlized; or worse yet, supposedly taunted, have cassette tapes thrown at you, and have your plaque immediately removed from the local walk of fame.

So at least half of our membership claims, so take it with a deer lick of salt.

shudder
Thanks for the advice! I'll try to not say it.

[Dirt Roads]

This is like going to "the hospital," as if there's only one. 

Oh, that is a good one, with an interesting twist (that I need to remember to document).  Folks in Central West Virginia would say "I'm going to thuh hospital" if they are visiting someone, but instead would say "I'm going to thie hospital" if they are getting admitted.  Which leads to why it was always "thie Emergency Room".  Thanks for the reminder.

And somehow, folks would usually know which hospital was "thie hospital" even when there were more than one (I grew up in one of the few areas of West Virginia that had choices).  When my folks said "thie hospital", it meant "Charleston General"; when the neighbor across the road said the same thing it meant "Thomas Memorial"; and two doors down those folks meant "Cabell-Huntington".  There were several others, as well.  Nobody said anything else; everybody just knew where they were going to go.

[Rothman]

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.

My state's highway department is Tex Dot.  That one's easy.  The driver license office is the DPS, or you can mislabel it as the DMV if you mistakenly think that Texas is like every other state.  I mention these because the DMV, which handles vehicle registrations and permits (which for most of my life were handled by the highway department, and we didn't have a DMV) is now branding itself as TxDMV.  It's the same format as TxDOT, but there's no good way to say it.  Is it tee ecks dee emm vee, which just makes it longer and take more effort to say, or is it something like tex dimv, which is just stupid?

"Ticks dot."

[1995hoo]

the NFL
the NAACP
the USSR

but

ESPN
GEICO
UPS

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.

So you would say something like "Wyatt Crenshaw was drafted to MLB from Colorado Christian University"?

I'd probably say, "The Arizona Diamondbacks drafted Colorado Christian's Wyatt Crenshaw in the 19th round of the 2023 MLB Draft." In your sentence, "to MLB" sounds strange to me, but not because of the absence of "the." It's just not a usage I think I've ever really heard. I've pretty much always heard "drafted" references phrase in terms of who did the drafting, either with that entity as the subject (like in my example here) or as the object of a preposition ("Bruce Springsteen was drafted by the Army but was classified 4F and avoided service.").

[kphoger]

So you would say something like "Wyatt Crenshaw was drafted to MLB from Colorado Christian University"?

I'd probably say, "The Arizona Diamondbacks drafted Colorado Christian's Wyatt Crenshaw in the 19th round of the 2023 MLB Draft." In your sentence, "to MLB" sounds strange to me, but not because of the absence of "the." It's just not a usage I think I've ever really heard.

How about this, then, from the university's website:

"Wyatt is the first player ever drafted to the MLB from CCU baseball, but he does not believe he will be the last."

Should they have removed the word "the" from that sentence?

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.

[1995hoo]

How about this, then, from the university's website:

"Wyatt is the first player ever drafted to the MLB from CCU baseball, but he does not believe he will be the last."

Should they have removed the word "the" from that sentence?

Yes. Try spelling it out. You wouldn't say "the first player ever drafted to the Major League Baseball."

[hotdogPi]

At least outside West Virginia, the pronunciation of "the" is dependent on whether the next word begins with a vowel sound.

[kphoger]

How about this, then, from the university's website:

"Wyatt is the first player ever drafted to the MLB from CCU baseball, but he does not believe he will be the last."

Should they have removed the word "the" from that sentence?

Yes. Try spelling it out. You wouldn't say "the first player ever drafted to the Major League Baseball."

But it isn't spelled out.  I'm saying there isn't a hard and fast correlation, and that the university article got it right.  It would sound really awkward to remove the word "the" from the quoted sentence, just as it would sound really awkward to not remove it from yours.

In other words, the terms "MLB" and "NFL" are functionally equivalent—both being the name of a sports league—so it makes sense to treat them as grammatically equivalent too.  In my opinion.  Which is worth approximately nine cents.

[Dirt Roads]

At least outside West Virginia, the pronunciation of "the" is dependent on whether the next word begins with a vowel sound.

And that's what was taught in English class in my part of West Virginia.