Sunday, February 06, 2005
The Importance of a Definite Article
The LDS Church produces a monthly magazine for its members. The title on the cover says, "Ensign." It's a reference to the scripture that talks about "an ensign to the nations," meaning a standard or rallying point. There are those who mispronounce the word as if it were the rank in the navy ("EN-sin," as opposed to the correct "EN-zine"), and some people get all worked up about that.
But the thing that puzzles me is the inalienable tradition of calling the magazine "the Ensign." We always include the definite article when talking about it ("I was reading an article in the Ensign" or "We should all subscribe to the Ensign"). Granted, we do leave it off when we say "This month's Ensign."
There is no "The" on the cover. Why do we put one there? We don't call other magazines, for example, "the Time," "the National Geographic," or "the People." I guess it's not wrong; the magazine itself endorses the use of "the" when it refers to itself internally ("Text and visual material in the Ensign may be copied for incidental, noncommercial church or home use," it tells us). And the habit is so ingrained in me, any attempt to break it would be futile. Still, it's weird. I wonder where it came from.
But the thing that puzzles me is the inalienable tradition of calling the magazine "the Ensign." We always include the definite article when talking about it ("I was reading an article in the Ensign" or "We should all subscribe to the Ensign"). Granted, we do leave it off when we say "This month's Ensign."
There is no "The" on the cover. Why do we put one there? We don't call other magazines, for example, "the Time," "the National Geographic," or "the People." I guess it's not wrong; the magazine itself endorses the use of "the" when it refers to itself internally ("Text and visual material in the Ensign may be copied for incidental, noncommercial church or home use," it tells us). And the habit is so ingrained in me, any attempt to break it would be futile. Still, it's weird. I wonder where it came from.
Comments:
Every newspaper I can think of is referred to using an article: the Times, the Sun, the Post, etc. For whatever reason, the Ensign is with that group instead of with magazines. Note that the New Era and the Friend explicitly include the article on the front page the way same magazines do such as the Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic, and the Nation. I liked the block "THE NEW ERA" logo that was used in the past.
--John Mansfield
--John Mansfield
John: The Ensign can be distinguished from your examples, though. The New York Times, for example, actually prints the word "The" in their masthead. Same for "The New York Sun," "The Washington Post," "The Boston Globe," "The Salt Lake Tribune," "The New Republic," "The New Yorker," "The Atlantic," etc. etc. Also, as you mention, "The New Era" and "The Friend" print the definite article on the cover. The cover of the Ensign just says "Ensign." No "the." In every case that I can think of, when we say the "the," it's printed on the page. Except in the case of "Ensign." Did it maybe USED to have a "The," and the logo changed, as it did with that great block New Era logo you refer to?
It seems that publications with "magazine" in their name don't need the definite article. Time Magazine, National Geographic Magazine, People Magazine.
Maybe we're just weird, but most people in my family refer to the National Geographic as, well, "the National Geographic," in conversational settings. And though I don't say "the People," I usually say "this month's People" or "the July issue of People" rather than "People Magazine." The only time I say "People Magazine" is when it starts a sentence; there your pattern holds ("The New York Times today said," and "The Ensign this month said," but "People Magazine said.") Same goes for Time, TV Guide, etc.
Of course, there's the issue of that original quotation: "an ensign to the nations," and the equivalence of "ensign" to "flag" -- I bet we'd say "The Flag" or "The Sign" or "The Signal" if that was the name of the church magazine, except in cases like "I read this week in Signal" -- there it'd go one way or the other, and no one would be able to explain why that way was the right one.
I wonder if those church members living in Ensign, Kansas say "The Ensign," too.
Of course, there's the issue of that original quotation: "an ensign to the nations," and the equivalence of "ensign" to "flag" -- I bet we'd say "The Flag" or "The Sign" or "The Signal" if that was the name of the church magazine, except in cases like "I read this week in Signal" -- there it'd go one way or the other, and no one would be able to explain why that way was the right one.
I wonder if those church members living in Ensign, Kansas say "The Ensign," too.
People get bent out of shape because some are pedantic like me. So I have to point out that it's NOT pronounced "EN-zine". There's no hard 'Z' in the pronunciation. You're correct it's not "EN-suhn" either.
It's "EN-sine" with a soft "s". The Church used to put a pronunciation comment in the first page of the magazine every month but some years back they removed it. It was either in December or January in the Q&A section (this past Dec or Jan, that is) that someone asked about it.
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It's "EN-sine" with a soft "s". The Church used to put a pronunciation comment in the first page of the magazine every month but some years back they removed it. It was either in December or January in the Q&A section (this past Dec or Jan, that is) that someone asked about it.
