Place No Faith in Articles ⇥

A smart article on articles from the Wall Street Journal.

Nintendo Co.’s website shows gamers “what Wii is all about.” As far back as 1984, Apple Inc. said in a commercial that it would “introduce Macintosh.” Today, an Apple video enthuses: “There’s never been anything like iPad.” Some companies make the drop official. Research In Motion Ltd.’s style guide specifies that “BlackBerry” should be used “as an adjective and not as a noun or verb.” An unacceptable usage, it says: “the BlackBerry.”

I first noticed this in my iPod Mini instructions, with their coaxing me to “connect iPod to iTunes to sync.” It’s smart marketing but also grammatically frustrating.