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Dear English teachers,

I have a question. I noticed that news articles tend to use the definite article "the" when describing a three-letter acronym, e.g. the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, the MLB... etc. However, when describing a four(or more)-letter acronym, the definite article "the" has been omitted, e.g. NASA, FIFA, UNCCD, UNESCO... etc.

Since all these acronyms are describing similar entities like government agencies or international associations, I wonder why different rules have been applied to those four(or more)-letter acronyms?

Thank you for your help.

2sc945
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    Does this answer your question? On the usage of "the" article with acronyms and initialisms In the UK, one would normally hear "She works for ITV" but "She works for the BBC". The article is almost always found attached to the expanded form 'The British Broadcasting Co ...', but not with 'Independent Television'. However, as your examples show, this isn't a complete explanation. // Note that only NASA, FIFA and UNESCO are strictly acronyms (pronounced as if true words) here. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 23 '20 at 14:05
  • Thank you for your comment. Did you mean that NASA, FIFA and UNESCO can omit the definite article "the" because they are considered to be unique acronyms whereas three(or two)-letter acronyms are almost always ambiguous (e.g. the National Basketball Association and the Nepalese Basketball Association can both be abbreviated as NBA), and that's why we need to add the definite article "the" before any three(or two)-letter acronyms? – 2sc945 Oct 23 '20 at 14:34
  • No. Many shorter initialisms have multiple expansions, so we'd need superscripts say to distinguish them. AAA apparently has well over 100 expansions, according to AcronymFinder (they use the term 'acronyms' where most linguists would use 'acronyms and initialisms'). Obviously, we'd say 'AAA is our major need on the base' for anti-aircraft artillery, but (quite posibly, as in their website) 'the AAA' in 'The AAA, along with several other scientific societies' where AAA = American Anthropological Association'. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 23 '20 at 15:42
  • Just to be clear, there's no formula for using the that applies to 3-letter but not more-letter acronyms. – Yosef Baskin Oct 23 '20 at 16:44

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