The question
A PEG member asked the PEGforum*: When does one add the definite article to ‘National Treasury’? I see it used with and without the article in their own documents:
- The National Treasury takes note of the main findings …
- National Treasury is aware of most of the risks to economic growth …
- Issued by National Treasury.
Another PEG member added: I find exactly the same problem for a number of words. The one I’m dealing with at the moment is UK/the UK.
The answer? Always use the definite article.
One of our grammarians added: Careless people are wont to drop ‘the’ before a number of nouns, eg, ‘government instead of ‘the government’, ‘council’ instead of ‘the council’ and ‘province’ instead of ‘the province’, but this practice goes against the grain when referring to the institution. Just as ‘the City’ refers to the administrative/executive body responsible for running a city.
Perhaps this is allied to the convention of using ‘the’ before the full-out version (eg, the University of … employs…, the Electricity Supply Commission employs…), but not using ‘the’ before initialisms and acronyms (eg, UCT employs… or Eskom employs …) but
The UK/USA/UAR is always correct when referring to the state, never without the article.
Whatever you decide, be consistent! Make a note in your style sheet.
*To belong to the PEGforum, you need to be a member of PEG.
Published on: Jun 4, 2023 at 16:35
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