Miscellaneous Proper Names

1. Names of streets and parks are generally used without articles: Oxford Street, Regent Street, Fleet Street, Wall Street, Pall Mall, Picadilly; Trafalgar Square, Russel Square, Picadilly Circus, Hyde Park, Central Park, Memorial Park.

Note that some streets are traditionally used with the definite article: the Strand, the High Street.

2. Names of theatres, museums, picture galleries, concert halls, cinemas, clubs and hotels tend to be used the definite article:

the Bolshoi Theatre, the Opera House, the Coliseum Theatre;

the British Museum, the Oriental Arts Museum, the Hermitage;

the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the Tretyakov Gallery;

the Festive Hall, the Albert Hall, the Carnegie Hall;

the Empire, the Odeon, the Dominion;

the National Liberal Club, the Rotary Club;

the Ambassador Hotel, the Continental Hotel, the Savoy, the Ritz.

3. Some grammarians point out a growing tendency not to use articles with names of airports and railway stations: London Airport, Moscow Airport, Victoria Station.

4. Names of ships and boats are used with the definite article: the Titanic, the Sedov.

5. Names of newspapers and magazines are generally used with the definite article: the Times, the Guardian, the Lancet, the Language; some of them have no article: Punch, Newsweek.

6. Names of territories consisting of a word combination in which the last word is a common nouns are generally used with the definite article: the Lake District, the Yorkshire Forests, etc.

7. Names of well-known organizations are typically used with the definite article, which they keep when they are abbreviated: the United Nations (the UN), the BBC, the Labour Party, the FBI, the EC.

If the abbreviation is pronounced as a word, there is no article: NATO, [‘neitou], UNICEF [‘ju:nisef].

Business and chairs of shops are referred to with no article. General Motors, Sony, Woolworths, Shell, Nissan, Singapore Airlines.

If a word like company is used, then the definite article often occurs: the Bell Telephone Company.

8. Names of most political or government bodies and institutions have the definite article: the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Department of Trade of Industry, the State Department, the Cabinet, the Bundestag.

Note the following exceptions: Parliament, Congress, and the names of councils: Kent County Council, Leeds City Council.

9. Names of musical groups can have either no article or the definite article; Queen, the Beatles, Dire Straits, the Supremes, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones, the Shadows, the Eurythmics, the Doors.

10. Names of sporting events usually have the definite article: the Olympic Games, the World Cup, the Superbowl, the Cup Final, the Boat Race, the Grand National, the British Open, etc.

11. Names of religious and other festivals take no article: Christmas, Easter, Carnival, Corpus, Christi, Ramadan, Midsummer’s Day, Mother’s Day, New Year’s Day, St.Valentine’s Day.

Note the difference between: Happy Easter! and I wish you a happy Easter or Did you have a good Easter?