Part 3 Social Orientating Names

No article is used with the majority of social orientating names. They denote notions connected with various activities aimed at meeting requirements, desires and needs of people.

Social orientating names may denote places (names of colleges, hospitals etc.), agents (names of teams etc.) and components (names of academic subjects, drugs etc.) of activity.

The social names are subdivided into three groups:

- local orientating names which are connected with daily activities of people in the area where they live (§ 1);

• national orientating names which denote orientating points in the structure of society (§ 2);

• derivative orientating names which are derived from orientating names of basic groups (§ 3).

§ 1. Local orientating names

No article is used with local orientating names which denote places, agents and components in the following spheres of daily activity of a person.

1. Education.

a) No article is found with names of places of education:

• names of private schools {Harrow);

• names of colleges {King's College);

• names of universities, e.g. Cambridge University, but 'the University of Cambridge' is the usual written form;

• names of polyteehnics {Hong Kong Polytechnic).

Note: Names of institutes usually have the definite article, e.g. Chancy had a rough anuscript which he showed to the US Naval Institute (RD).

b) no article is used with names of academic subjects (Arithmetic).

2. Medicine.

No article is used with

1. names of places of the activity - hospitals, which have a strong tendency to drop the definite article (Alexandra Hospital);

2. names of the components of the activity - drugs (aspirin) and diseases (pneumonia) - have no article in the general sense, though the definite article is used to denote their concrete instances or manifestations:

e.g. Cancer is another of my ills. But the cancer that strikes me is among the better-behaved ones (RD).

3. Sports.

No article is used with a) names of places of activity:

• stadiums (Wembly);

• horse riding tracks (Rotten Row);

• cricket grounds (Trout Bridge);

• shooting ranges (Bisley);

• race courses (Glorious Goodwood);

b) names of collective agents of activity:

• clubs (Celtic);

• teams (Chicago Bulls).

c) names of components of activity in certain patterns - to play football, to go in for swimming, etc.

4. Religion.

No article is used with

a) names of places of activity:

• cathedrals (Westminster Cathedral);

• churches (St. Martin-in-the-Fields).

2. name of the agent of activity (God, Allah, etc.);

3. names of activity -religious teachings (Islam, Christianity).

5. Daily activities. No article is used with

1. names of places of daily activities in prepositional phrases - to be in (to go to) school, college, university, hospital, church, town,etc.;

2. means of daily activity - to go by plane, train, boat; by post; on TV (radio).

The definite article is used with

1. Names of places of entertainment because they are not connected with regular activity of the majority of people:

• names of theatres (the Globe);

• names of concert halls (the Albert Hall);

• names of picture galleries (the Tate).

2. Orientating names used in 'of-phrases',

e.g. the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics.

3. Orientating names expressed by common nouns with unique reference,

e.g. the London Business School, the Round Church (Cambridge), the Ovals (cricket ground), the Hebrew University (Jerusalem), the Middlesex Hospital, etc.