These two are among the largest donors to Singularity Institute, an organization focused on the reduction of existential risks from artificial intelligence.
It’s as if people are being deliberately mischievous by writing both “the SIAI” (which should be “SIAI”), and on the other hand, “Singularity Institute” (which should be “the Singularity Institute”).
Luke is probably confused by the fact that the organization is often called “Singinst” by its members. But that expression grammatically functions as a name, like “SIAI” (or, now, “SI”), and thus does not take the definite article.
Abbrevations differ as to whether they function as names or descriptions: IAS, but the UN. SI(AI) is like the former, not the latter.
If the abbreviation is an acronym (i.e. pronounced as a word rather than a string of letter names), then it will function as a name: ACORN, not “the ACORN” (even though, in full, it’s “the Association...”).
I think Luke may have been trying to take after Singularity University, which doesn’t use “the”, because that seems to be the convention for universities? But yes, I agree the lack of a definite article here is grating. It creates impression that writer of sentence is Russian.
...Singularity University, which doesn’t use “the”, because that seems to be the convention for universities?
Specifically, it’s the convention for university names following the formula “X University” (as opposed to “University of/for/in X”). These should be thought of as analogous to geographic place-names (which is what they basically are): “Hamilton County”, “Bikini Atoll”, “Harvard University”, etc. (“Singularity University” would be analogous to “Treasure Island”.)
There are a few rare exceptions: The George Washington University, The Ohio State University (both articles often “mistakenly” omitted!), the Bering Strait.
Anyway, why in the world would SI want to “take after” SU? The risk of confusion between these two organizations is large enough as it is.
The main thing was that he used both in the same article. I assumed that the Singularity Institute was correct because I’ve seen it more frequently, but consistency is the big thing.
I didn’t make any claim about “simplicity”, and nor does anything in the link contradict anything I wrote. Indeed, it confirms my point: some things take “the”, others don’t, and it isn’t a matter of on-the-spot whim.
Note that I did not propose any general rule for determining which category something falls into without prior knowledge. My comment about descriptions versus names does not have any predictive implications. I could have talked about “weak” and “strong” instead.
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).
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.
(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.
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”.
I personally find “the SIAI” sound ridiculous to me. Do you log on to the Facebook while you read the Less Wrong? How many alumni from the MIT work at the NASA? How about that story on the CNN about the record profits at the PEPSI?
Notice a pattern? Well marketed concerns all drop “the” in their product or company name. Marketing science has demonstrated again and again that shorter names are more memorable and strictly better. Since English is not airtight on this matter, I say Science > English.
Abbreviations are treated separately from the corresponding full names. One doesn’t say “the ABC”, but one does say “the American Broadcasting Company”. Likewise, “SIAI” (not “the SIAI”), but “the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence”.
You say:
I personally find “the SIAI” sound ridiculous to me
Guess what: I agree! Quite a while ago, I pointed out that “the SIAI” was a non-native quirk introduced by XiXiDu (and for some reason picked up by certain native speakers). Maybe it was too subtle for some people, but in that comment I was expressing the fact that “the SIAI” sounds completely wrong to me.
I don’t understand why this is so complicated. One says “at the Singularity Institute”, but also “at SIAI”. This is the default English usage. It’s what people have been saying all along. There is nothing weird, complex, or freaky going on here. I’m advocating a return to normalcy!
You ask:
Notice a pattern?
The answer is yes: people consistently underestimate the information content of my comments, and often simply fail to read what they say. This drives me frickin’ crazy!
You have all of my sympathies. What you are saying makes perfect sense (as such, I have nothing to add or take away from it), and I agree with it completely.
That said, I understand why you’re getting so hot-blooded. I’m getting hot-blooded over Louie’s systematic failure to understand you, and I’m not even the one being misunderstood!
Guess what: I agree! Quite a while ago, I pointed out that “the SIAI” was a non-native quirk introduced by XiXiDu (and for some reason picked up by certain native speakers).
Please correct me if I am wrong, I haven’t read up on language evolution yet. But isn’t it the case that natural language evolves? Unlike math, if enough people believe that a certain syntax is correct then it is correct. So if I start to write “the SIAI” at a time when people think that it sounds wrong but then gradually more and more people adapt that notation and start to perceive it to sound right, doesn’t it become right?
If you like I will from now on use the syntax that you suggest simply because you seem to care strongly about it while I don’t care at all.
Work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or work at NASA. Refer to wikipedia if you are in doubt.
Notice a pattern?
Of the list you gave MIT and NASA are both analogous to SIAI. CNN is an entirely different kind of acronym and Pepsi isn’t an acronym at all so doesn’t even get allcaps when written in a sentence. Follow the example of the MIT and NASA, both of which use ‘the’ before the full name but not before the acronym. Because not doing so looks ridiculous.
Well marketed concerns all drop “the” in their product or company name. Marketing science has demonstrated again and again that shorter names are more memorable and strictly better. Since English is not airtight on this matter, I say Science > English.
Muddled thinking based on poorly understood science < English < Science.
Colonizing the middle ground between you and komponisto, I think it should be “the Singularity Institute”, “the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence”, and “SIAI”.
I don’t think komponisto is even advocating for “the SIAI”. It says “IAS” and “MSRI” despite saying “the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute”.
Colonizing the middle ground between you and komponisto, I think it should be “the Singularity Institute”, “the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence”, and “SIAI”.
That isn’t the “middle ground”! That is exactly my position!
Whenever you are speaking (or typing) in public you must consider the message conveyed to the audience as much (or often more) than the message to the person you are addressing. In this case by claiming for yourself the ‘middle ground’ you are positioning komponisto outside of that ground. Since you then go on to present what is essentially the only sane position to have on the subject your giving somewhat of significant slight to komponisto—the casual observer is being led to believe that kompo has been saying something silly.
Being (apparently) oblivious to what you are doing you opted to condescend to komponisto rather than politely retract or ideally just leave kompo’s reaffirmation as the final word. This is a mistake and changes how people will interpret the exchange. I, for example, just downvoted your initial mistake as well as the parent. While I noticed the distortion of komponisto’s position on my first read I let it pass because it was a minor part of an otherwise decent comment. When you latter tried to reinforce you message with a challenge it became the salient detail and one the likes of which I prefer to discourage.
I didn’t consider it condescending; I thought it was amusingly ironic. (Note the juxtaposition: “he gets the second person and you don’t.”) But you’ve made it clear my opinion on my tone doesn’t matter. So it goes. It’s a pity you can’t downvote me twice.
In testimony to Congress about 15 years ago, the director of the CIA used “CIA” without the definite article, which certainly suggests that he preferred it to be referred to that way. How it is referred to by the public however is probably not up to the leaders of the CIA but rather up to the media and maybe bloggers and tweeters. Note that the American Broadcasting Corporation, the National Broadcasting Corporation, the Citizens Broadcasting Service and the Public Broadcasting Service are able to decide how they will be referred to by the public (because they have unparalleled access to the public’s ear) and the have decided they’d like to be referred to without the definite article.
All that suggests that there is some advantage to being referred to without the definite article. (Perhaps the definite article has the effect of “distancing” the referent in the mind of the listener.)
Did you miss this comment? Abbreviations are treated separately from the corresponding full names. One doesn’t say “the ABC”, but one does say “the American Broadcasting Company”. Et cetera.
Likewise, “SIAI” (not “the SIAI”), but “the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence”.
One may be either “at CIA” (especially if you’re an insider) or “at the CIA”, but as far as I know one is always “at the Central Intelligence Agency”.
Should this be the Singularity Institute?
Indeed.
It’s as if people are being deliberately mischievous by writing both “the SIAI” (which should be “SIAI”), and on the other hand, “Singularity Institute” (which should be “the Singularity Institute”).
Luke is probably confused by the fact that the organization is often called “Singinst” by its members. But that expression grammatically functions as a name, like “SIAI” (or, now, “SI”), and thus does not take the definite article.
The full name, however, (“the Singularity Institute”) functions grammatically as a description, and thus does take the definite article. Compare: the United Nations, the Brookings Institution, the Institute for Advanced Study, the London School of Economics, the Center for Inquiry, the National Football League.
Abbrevations differ as to whether they function as names or descriptions: IAS, but the UN. SI(AI) is like the former, not the latter.
If the abbreviation is an acronym (i.e. pronounced as a word rather than a string of letter names), then it will function as a name: ACORN, not “the ACORN” (even though, in full, it’s “the Association...”).
I think Luke may have been trying to take after Singularity University, which doesn’t use “the”, because that seems to be the convention for universities? But yes, I agree the lack of a definite article here is grating. It creates impression that writer of sentence is Russian.
Specifically, it’s the convention for university names following the formula “X University” (as opposed to “University of/for/in X”). These should be thought of as analogous to geographic place-names (which is what they basically are): “Hamilton County”, “Bikini Atoll”, “Harvard University”, etc. (“Singularity University” would be analogous to “Treasure Island”.)
There are a few rare exceptions: The George Washington University, The Ohio State University (both articles often “mistakenly” omitted!), the Bering Strait.
Anyway, why in the world would SI want to “take after” SU? The risk of confusion between these two organizations is large enough as it is.
The main thing was that he used both in the same article. I assumed that the Singularity Institute was correct because I’ve seen it more frequently, but consistency is the big thing.
Things are not always that simple: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2172
I didn’t make any claim about “simplicity”, and nor does anything in the link contradict anything I wrote. Indeed, it confirms my point: some things take “the”, others don’t, and it isn’t a matter of on-the-spot whim.
Note that I did not propose any general rule for determining which category something falls into without prior knowledge. My comment about descriptions versus names does not have any predictive implications. I could have talked about “weak” and “strong” instead.
There have been quite a few posts on Language Log about which proper names are preceded by the, e.g. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2172
In the time of John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt, “Yosemite” was apparently “The Yosemite”
I’ve been curious as to when it dropped its article.
The singinst.org About Us/Our Mission page uses the article#Definite_article), as do some other places on the site. The Strategic Plan (“UPDATE: AUGUST 2011”) consistently uses no article.
I believe the Strategic Plan was authored by Luke, and hence the criticism also applies there.
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).
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.
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,
and
Perhaps Singularity Institute is an aspiring paramilitary force.
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”.
I personally find “the SIAI” sound ridiculous to me. Do you log on to the Facebook while you read the Less Wrong? How many alumni from the MIT work at the NASA? How about that story on the CNN about the record profits at the PEPSI?
Notice a pattern? Well marketed concerns all drop “the” in their product or company name. Marketing science has demonstrated again and again that shorter names are more memorable and strictly better. Since English is not airtight on this matter, I say Science > English.
Louie, please read my comments again and tell me if you still think your reply makes any sense whatsoever as a response.
Because—I’m sorry to say—this represents a total failure of reading comprehension. Quoting myself:
here:
In the same comment:
Here::
Here::
You say:
Guess what: I agree! Quite a while ago, I pointed out that “the SIAI” was a non-native quirk introduced by XiXiDu (and for some reason picked up by certain native speakers). Maybe it was too subtle for some people, but in that comment I was expressing the fact that “the SIAI” sounds completely wrong to me.
I don’t understand why this is so complicated. One says “at the Singularity Institute”, but also “at SIAI”. This is the default English usage. It’s what people have been saying all along. There is nothing weird, complex, or freaky going on here. I’m advocating a return to normalcy!
You ask:
The answer is yes: people consistently underestimate the information content of my comments, and often simply fail to read what they say. This drives me frickin’ crazy!
You have all of my sympathies. What you are saying makes perfect sense (as such, I have nothing to add or take away from it), and I agree with it completely.
That said, I understand why you’re getting so hot-blooded. I’m getting hot-blooded over Louie’s systematic failure to understand you, and I’m not even the one being misunderstood!
(Keeping in mind, all the while, Wiio’s Laws.)
upvoted for the link to Wiio’s Laws.
Please correct me if I am wrong, I haven’t read up on language evolution yet. But isn’t it the case that natural language evolves? Unlike math, if enough people believe that a certain syntax is correct then it is correct. So if I start to write “the SIAI” at a time when people think that it sounds wrong but then gradually more and more people adapt that notation and start to perceive it to sound right, doesn’t it become right?
If you like I will from now on use the syntax that you suggest simply because you seem to care strongly about it while I don’t care at all.
Work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or work at NASA. Refer to wikipedia if you are in doubt.
Of the list you gave MIT and NASA are both analogous to SIAI. CNN is an entirely different kind of acronym and Pepsi isn’t an acronym at all so doesn’t even get allcaps when written in a sentence. Follow the example of the MIT and NASA, both of which use ‘the’ before the full name but not before the acronym. Because not doing so looks ridiculous.
Muddled thinking based on poorly understood science < English < Science.
“The SIAI” wasn’t suggested. “The Singularity Institute [for Artificial Intelligence]” was.
Colonizing the middle ground between you and komponisto, I think it should be “the Singularity Institute”, “the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence”, and “SIAI”.
I don’t think komponisto is even advocating for “the SIAI”. It says “IAS” and “MSRI” despite saying “the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute”.
That isn’t the “middle ground”! That is exactly my position!
This wasn’t for your frame of reference, but for Louie’s. That’s why he gets the second person and you don’t.
I didn’t consider it condescending; I thought it was amusingly ironic. (Note the juxtaposition: “he gets the second person and you don’t.”) But you’ve made it clear my opinion on my tone doesn’t matter. So it goes. It’s a pity you can’t downvote me twice.
Would you explain why?
In testimony to Congress about 15 years ago, the director of the CIA used “CIA” without the definite article, which certainly suggests that he preferred it to be referred to that way. How it is referred to by the public however is probably not up to the leaders of the CIA but rather up to the media and maybe bloggers and tweeters. Note that the American Broadcasting Corporation, the National Broadcasting Corporation, the Citizens Broadcasting Service and the Public Broadcasting Service are able to decide how they will be referred to by the public (because they have unparalleled access to the public’s ear) and the have decided they’d like to be referred to without the definite article.
All that suggests that there is some advantage to being referred to without the definite article. (Perhaps the definite article has the effect of “distancing” the referent in the mind of the listener.)
Did you miss this comment? Abbreviations are treated separately from the corresponding full names. One doesn’t say “the ABC”, but one does say “the American Broadcasting Company”. Et cetera.
Likewise, “SIAI” (not “the SIAI”), but “the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence”.
One may be either “at CIA” (especially if you’re an insider) or “at the CIA”, but as far as I know one is always “at the Central Intelligence Agency”.