Has anybody noticed a decrease in the use of the definite article - especially in professional / academic-related language, both spoken and written?

In 2005 newspapers in the UK reported with shock that President Bush had appointed John Bolton as the U.S ambassador to the United Nations.

Why?

The Daily Telegraph (May 13, 2005) reported that Bolton had said, “If the UN headquarters in New York lost 10 stories (sic.), it wouldn`t make any difference” and that “there is no such thing as the United Nations.”

And yet, when I heard Bolton on the radio, what he actually said was;”If UN headquarters in New York lost 10 storeys, it wouldn`t make any difference” and “there is no such thing as United Nations”.

[stories = UK spelling | US spelling = storeys or stories]

In both statements he dropped the definite article.

Similarly, George Bush regularly refers to United States Congress (as in “United States Congress has spoken”), United States, United States Army, FBI and CIA, all without using the definite article.

The question is: why are they dropping the article before nouns? As teachers and students of English we would expect some sort of article as there is only one UN and one United States Congress and as these are concrete, countable nouns, we`d normally expect “the”.

Another example, (the) Secretary of State, Colin Powell, after a Palestine bomb attack of 15 September 03, announced, “United States Government will not give up on its friends in Palestine.”

Again, we would expect “the” before United States Government. In fact, I have spent years correcting my students from India and Pakistan and from Slavonic countries for not using the before “Government” or “legal system” or “parliamentary party” or “green movement” etc. when referring to a specific entity.

And yet we now regularly hear politicians, business people and government officials using these nouns without an article: the zero article. Typically:

• When Ian Duncan Smith resigned as Leader of the Conservative Party in the UK he said, “Parliamentary Party has spoken.”

• A teachers` representative talking about the lack of discipline in schools explained on the BBC that he had been “trying to impress upon Government the seriousness of the situation we are facing.” (Radio 5, 7/10/03).

• Similarly, a spokesperson for Oxfordshire County Council “blames government for cutting its budget” (BBC 6 O`clock News 18/02/04)

Traditionally, if we are referring to a specific government, we use the definite article: “The government has introduced new measures to stop tax dodgers”.

If we are referring to government as an abstract entity, to the role and function of government, rather than to any specific body, then we don`t use the article: “It`s about getting government off your back.” (Ian Duncan Smith).

Clearly, in the example above, Duncan Smith is talking about “government” in the abstract, any government, as in “It`s the role of government to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”

However, with the earlier examples of the teachers` representative and the Oxfordshire County Council, the reference is likely to be to the Labour Government of Tony Blair.

So what`s happening to the the?

I think there`s a tendency, especially among professional people, to drop the article before words and phrases that are in constant use.

This is partly for convenience but also as a signal that they are au fait, or at home and at ease, with a word or phrase and with the entity it represents.

It`s a way of appropriating language as well as a way of signalling membership of a group. Take, for example, officials working for the CIA – I can imagine that they would use the zero article when referring to the FBI - “According to FBI…”
It forms part of a professional jargon.

I heard a very spiritual friend say, “When you pray from heart”. That`s a good example of a sort of professional speak.

Here are some more examples (I have put an * where an article could be used):

In business / industry:
You have to think about * shelf life
He is in * meeting
Within * budget
To * deadline
To attend * interview/called to interview
* Director of / Managing Director of Harrods
There`s trouble up * mill (a cliché beloved of comedians imitating workers from the industrial north of England)
“Final * product would be an instrument that stipulates a systematic approach”

In the Church:
* Synod decided to reject the proposal
The proposals were presented to * Synod
To attend * service

Among scientists:
When forests are included in * catchment (the dam area)
In spite of * adverse social and environmental impact
Under * microscope the microbe can be seen as…
The big question is whether or not * Big Bang was a one off event.

In education:
The problem with long holidays is * loss of * learning habit (from an interview with a local headteacher, Isle of Thanet Gazette, 6/2/04))
There is *l ack of * vocational option in secondary school
Seth Lindstromberg is * author / editor of The Standby Book
To address * plenary
In * plenary
To speak at * conference

In nursing:
* Mother and * baby were reported to be fine
When * baby arrives

In some of these examples you can see an element of using a noun in an abstract way, referring to the function rather than the place or object or event, as in “in prison” and “in hospital”: “baby” refers to new arrival, the state of babyhood with all the nappy changing and waking up in the night that goes with it; “to attend interview” stresses the state of being in interview rather than a particular appointment.

However, at other times the noun is clearly being used to refer to a specific countable noun. For example, I heard one scientist refer to “big bang” – while another referred simply to “bang”: “What happened before “bang”” (The Theory of Everything, Channel 4, 16/11/03).

Amateurs and outsiders would refer reverentially to the event that started everything off as “the Big Bang”. However, physicists and astronomers who refer to the event in the normal course of a day`s work can say, “big bang” or even “bang”. That shows that the phrase is theirs, it belongs to their dialect, it signals membership of their intellectual and professional discourse community.

The zero article can signal familiarity, as it does in idiomatic expressions such as:

In the dead of night
To meet face to face
Not to see eye to eye

Or with words that regularly collocate:

Doctor and patient
Father and son.

If the zero article can signal familiarity, then can the use of an article do the opposite?

Well, yes, look at Mel Gibson`s film The Passion of the Christ. The use of the definite article before Christ adds a strangeness and distance, turning the familiar name, Christ, into a title, a role, making it suddenly unfamiliar.

Gibson is going against a whole tradition of the zero article in film titles – Giant, Rebel Without a Cause, Reds, Little Woman, Towering Inferno, Airport, Titanic etc. “The Christ” by defamiliarizing introduces an element of, perhaps, respect and reverence but maybe also something deeply conservative.

You may have noticed that I have been referring to the zero article but now that I am starting to feel like a bit of an expert on the subject, I`m going to refer to it from now on as just zero article!

James Banner Hilderstone College, Kent

James Banner (MA, Dip TEFL) is Director of Marketing and of External Courses at Hilderstone College, Broadstairs, UK. He directed the Cambridge/RSA DipTFLA programme which Hilderstone College piloted in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh and a Certificate programme in ELT with Kent Adult Education and the University of Kent. He has taught and lectured for schools, universities and the British Council in Brazil, Turkey, Dubai, South Africa, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Switzerland.

A version of this article was first published on
www.youandmelink.com website.

September 01 2006

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