komponisto comments on Existential Risk - Less Wrong

28 Post author: lukeprog 15 November 2011 02:23PM

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Comment author: Louie 18 November 2011 11:21:15AM 1 point [-]

Dropping "the" is a conscious, intentional decision by everyone at Singularity Institute as of several months ago and pre-dates Luke's involvement (but post-dates your visit last summer).

Comment author: komponisto 18 November 2011 07:38:59PM *  11 points [-]

That only changes the target of my criticism (now all of you, instead of just Luke), not the criticism itself, obviously.

The "the" isn't droppable, because it was never part of the name in the first place: it was never "The Singularity Institute"; but rather "the Singularity Institute". That is, the article is a part of the contextual grammar. Attempting to "drop" it would be like me declaring that "komponisto" must always be followed by plural verb forms.

(Some organizations do have "The" in the name itself, e.g. The Heritage Foundation. They could decide to drop the "The", and then their logo would say "Heritage Foundation". But one would still write "at the Heritage Foundation"; one just wouldn't write "at The Heritage Foundation".)

I don't know of any example of an "Institute" where people don't use an article in such a context -- which suggests that any such example that might exist isn't high-status enough for me to have heard of it. Even the one that I thought might be an example -- the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute -- also has a grammatical "the"!

You guys should want to be like IAS and MSRI (after all, you'd rather the people at those places be working for you instead!) I don't understand the rationale for this gratuitous eccentricity.

Comment author: thomblake 18 November 2011 07:46:56PM *  2 points [-]

Indeed - "A dinner at Singularity Institute" would be pronounced "A dinner at ; Singularity Institute", with an awkward pause inserted due to the obviously missing article. Contrast with "A dinner at the Singularity Institute".

Comment author: lessdazed 18 November 2011 08:58:45PM *  1 point [-]

(Some organizations do have "The" in the name itself, e.g. The Heritage Foundation. They could decide to drop the "The", and then their logo would say "Heritage Foundation". But one would still write "at the Heritage Foundation"; one just wouldn't write "at The Heritage Foundation".)

Military units are the only counterexample I can think of, but using "the" is correct for them too, I think. Glancing at wikipedia, it is inconsistent within articles,

During January 1919, the Third Army was engaged in training and preparing the troops under its command for any contingency...Accordingly the Third Army was disbanded on 2 July 1919.

and

Until the buildup of American forces prior to its entry into World War II, Third Army remained largely a paper formation...Mobilization saw Third Army take on the role of training some of the huge numbers of recruits that the draft was bringing into the Armed Forces.

Perhaps Singularity Institute is an aspiring paramilitary force.

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