[Foundation-l] Why "Wikipedia" and not "the Wikipedia"?

[Anthony]

On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk>wrote:

> (Perhaps Britannica gets it because "Encyclopedia" is a common word -
> we'd feel silly with the sentence "I looked it up in Encyclopedia
> Britannica", because "I looked it up in encyclopedia" would itself be
> wrong)


I don't have a problem with the sentence "I looked it up in Encyclopedia
Britannica".  In fact, after consideration, I'd say adding in "the" would be
technically incorrect.  Looking at britannica.com, EB consistently refers to
itself without "the" in the beginning.

Now look at www.cia.gov.  Seems to be no rhyme or reason to the use or
nonuse of "the" when the CIA refers to themselves.  "About CIA", "History of
the CIA", "Offices of CIA", "Contact CIA".  "To accomplish its mission, the
CIA engages in research, development, and deployment of high-leverage
technology for intelligence purposes. As a separate agency, CIA serves as an
independent source of analysis..."  They must have used Intellipedia to
create that paragraph.