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Taka

#231451 Thu, 01 Jun 06 03:17 PM

・The SanFrancisco Giants ended up as the champ.

Is it acceptable to omit the article 'the' and say 'Giants ended up as the champ'?

Taka

Joined on Tue, Sep 7 2004

Japan

Senior Member (2,266)

Articles

Grammar Geek

#231452 Thu, 01 Jun 06 03:19 PM

No, not unless you are writing a headline, in which the regular rules don't apply.

(Also, they would be the champions, plural, not the champ, because there is more than one person on the team.)

Grammar Geek

Joined on Tue, Jan 10 2006

Pennsylvania, USA

Veteran Member (15,595)

Barbara, who answers in American English.

Plurals

Taka

#231453 Thu, 01 Jun 06 03:26 PM

Grammar Geek wrote:
No, not unless you are writing a headline, in which the regular rules don't apply.

(Also, they would be the champions, plural, not the champ, because there is more than one person on the team.)

OK, then what about this?

We have a baseball team called 'Yomiuri Giants' here in Japan. (for your information, Yomiuri is not a name of a place like 'SanFrancisco', but it's the name of a company).

Isn't it OK to say 'Yomiuri ended up as the champ', without the article in front of the name and with the singular 'champ'?

Taka

Articles, Grammar, Plurals

Grammar Geek

#231463 Thu, 01 Jun 06 04:03 PM

Yes, Yomiuri is the company - in this sense, the company won the championship.

Grammar Geek

Taka

#231466 Thu, 01 Jun 06 04:14 PM

Grammar Geek wrote:
Yes, Yomiuri is the company - in this sense, the company won the championship.

Isn't it possible to treat 'Mets', 'Whitesox', or 'Giants' as a proper name in the same way?

Taka

Grammar

Grammar Geek

#231498 Thu, 01 Jun 06 05:22 PM

Do you call the company "The Yomiuri"? Probably not - it's just Yomiuri. We call the teams THE Yankees, THE White Sox, THE Tigers, etc. The Tigers are in the lead. The Tigers have a good chance of winning the championship. The Tigers might be the champs.

On the other hand, Wegman's (company name) is a great place to work, Access Group (company name) won the spelling bee, Waterloo Gardens won the local softball championship.

Grammar Geek

Spelling

Taka

#231500 Thu, 01 Jun 06 05:32 PM

Grammar Geek wrote:
Do you call the company "The Yomiuri"? Probably not - it's just Yomiuri. We call the teams THE Yankees, THE White Sox, THE Tigers, etc. The Tigers are in the lead.

I see. I think most Japanese people see Giants as a particular noun itself, like Sony or Honda. That might be the differece.

Taka

Grammar, Nouns

CalifJim

#231540 Thu, 01 Jun 06 07:01 PM

That could indeed be the difference. Teams in the U.S. have, with very few exceptions, names that are plural (countable). The idea is that the Giants is a team composed of giants. Each man on the team is a giant. The Raiders is team consisting of men, each of whom is a raider. And so on.

Note the peculiarity though:

The Raiders is a team ...
The Raiders win every game they play.
(Always with the whether treated as singular or plural)

Companies in the U.S., on the other hand, are treated as single legal entities. IBM is doing well this year. GE is doing poorly. (Always without the unless the company has named itself something that contains the, e.g., The Addison Group)

CJ