<p>OK, so I was reading the LA Times a few days ago and I came across an article about NASA. Now, NASA stands for "National Aeronautics and Space Administration." In the article, sentences like this often came up: "NASA announced..." and "NASA said..." </p>
<p>My question is this: *Is an article (namely "the") necessary before the acronym "NASA" (and other acronyms for that matter, like POTUS, CIA, FBI)? * I mean, we often see "the CIA" and "the FBI," but I don't think I've ever seen "the NASA." Anybody (Silverturtle, especially)?</p>
<p>CIA and FBI are technically not acronyms because they are pronounced only as individual letters, so they are called initialisms. Initialisms generally retain the definite article (“the FBI”), whereas acronyms do not (“NASA”).</p>
<p>OK, I understand. But why don’t the acronyms require an article? Normally, it’s required for a noun (let’s use “tiger”) to have an article in a sentence:</p>
<p>“Tiger sleeps” is incorrect
“A tiger sleeps” or “The tiger sleeps” is correct.</p>
<p>“National Aeronautics and Space Administration is full of smart people” seems incorrect (at least it sounds wrong)</p>
<p>WHILE</p>
<p>“The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is full of smart people” seems correct (and sounds right too).</p>
<p>Is this just one of those weird English rules?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I can’t think of any psycholinguistic explanations; it just sounds better and happens to be the rule.</p>
<p>When it’s an acronym, it’s like a name. You would never say “the Bob” or “the Jack”.</p>
<p>I’ll pitch in my 2 cents:
NASA is actually meant as a replacement to the actual name. Being the smart linguists we are, we abbreviate companies’ names (especially large ones) into acronyms. Not just companies, actually, but generally everything with a long name. Some turn out as acronyms (AIDS, NASA, etc.) and some as (as silverturtle said) initialisms.</p>
<p>However, there is no clear rule to this. You can most certainly find exceptions to any abbreviation, and mostly, you have to do it by ear. Thankfully, it’s usually pretty easy.
Note: MIT is not pronounced “mit” but you do not say “The MIT”. "MIT has… " is generally the correct usage. Similarly, while SAT can be an initialism or an acronym, you wouldn’t say “SAT is a very difficult test” - it needs an article. But then again SAT can be pluralized and you can say “SATs are…” so it’s not too clear here, either. Seeing as you’re speaking of the tests in general and not a specific batch of SATs then no article is necessary for the plural form - it’s not exactly the acronym/initialism’s fault.</p>
<p>Again, I’m not sure any rule can be defined. NASA is an acronym that is actually considered as the administration’s name, as if it didn’t even represent any title and were simply called “Nasa”. That’s why no “the” is necessary - it’s much like any other proper noun. “FBI” and “CIA” on the other hand don’t replace it in the same way. They’re not a proper name in and of themselves, so they require an article. It depends, usually.</p>