Tangent or not I'm interested. I think its less settled than you think. In fact I was always on the opposite team; its "NSA/DoD/DoE did x" just like it is "IBM

Tangent or not I'm interested. I think its less settled than you think. In fact I was always on the opposite team; its "NSA/DoD/DoE did x" just like it is "IBM did x" and not "the IBM did x." I did enough research to conclude that it was not a settled issue. Its clear that if the initials were lower case and referred to a generic agency that deals with national security it would be "the national security agency" similar to the "the fishing tackle section of a sporting goods store." On the other hand a gander at DoD's style guide[1] makes it clear that they do not like the "the." I'd love to see why you think its opposite. That's not dickish, that's a desire to answer a question that's been nagging me for a long time. [1] http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/writing/Writing_Style_Guide.pdf http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/writing/Writing_St... From the english.SX: "Is it proper to use “the” before the name of a government organization?" http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/76976/is-it-proper-to-use-the-before-the-name-of-a-government-organization http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/76976/is-it-prope... "Using the definite article with acronyms and initialisms" http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30596/using-the-definite-article-with-acronyms-and-initialisms http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30596/using-the-d... "Definite article with proper nouns, titles followed by a common noun" http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2327/definite-article-with-proper-nouns-titles-followed-by-a-common-noun http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2327/definite-art... "The definite article usage with objects that have names" http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/16988/the-definite-article-usage-with-objects-that-have-names http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/16988/the-definit... "Capitalising the definite article in names" http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/84288/capitalising-the-definite-article-in-names http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/84288/capitalisin...