Mike,

My understanding is that all three are correct. "The American Radio Relay League, Incorporated" is the corporation's legal name according to the ARRL Articles of Association. "ARRL The national association for Amateur Radio" is a registered trademark of the ARRL, although "the" ARRL still sounds better to me when used in a sentence, and the "League" is simply a shorthand reference for the ARRL that is in common usage (and one that I particularly like).

73,

Jim Tiemstra, K6JAT

Pacific Division Director

On April 17, 2020 at 9:03 AM Michael Ritz <w7vo@comcast.net> wrote:

I have a technical question that has been puzzling me for a while now. Maybe one of the grammar gurus or lawyers can answer this:

I've always considered the use of "ARRL" to be an acronym for "American Radio Relay League". That would indicate that a sentence would use the word "the" in reference to the ARRL. For example: "The ARRL (took this action)". What I'm seeing a lot of is: "ARRL (took this action)" ie: "ARRL wants you to stay safe in these times" verses "The ARRL wants you to stay safe in these times". It seems that all of the ARRL news releases I'm seeing now use the former, and not the latter. That seems somewhat odd to me.

Are we now just "ARRL" (like "IBM"), and not the "American Radio Relay League" ? Is it still OK to refer to us as "the League", if we are really just "ARRL" now?

73;

Mike

W7VO
_______________________________________________
arrl-odv mailing list
arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org
https://reflector.arrl.org/mailman/listinfo/arrl-odv