0

Why is it “the” Port Authority Bus Terminal, but not “the Penn Station”?

Eddie Kal
  • 18,866
  • 27
  • 89
  • 183
Jackie F
  • 1
  • Because there is only one. the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, etc. Penn Station and Grand Central Station. There are two of them. :) – Lambie Apr 21 '21 at 18:20
  • 3
    Does this answer your question? Why do we not use the definite article in "Where can I find the room 401?" As one answer explains, we don't use the definite article with names, unless "The" is part of the name. – ColleenV Apr 21 '21 at 18:25
  • I agree with ColleenV, but I also think that answer may not help a learner, because there's no obvious reason why "Port Authority Bus Station" isn't a name but "Penn Station" is. People can even disagree about this; I remember NASA using "Space Shuttle" like a proper name when almost everyone else called it the Space Shuttle. – stangdon Apr 21 '21 at 20:58
  • @stangdon Do you mean like "Space Shuttle Atlantis"? There were multiple space shuttles so "space shuttle" isn't really a proper name by itself. – ColleenV Apr 22 '21 at 11:04
  • @ColleenV No, I actually mean in sentences like "Space Shuttle is America's newest spacecraft." I would swear I remember them using it that way, but it looks like in more recent years they gave up on it. I'll see if I can find a historical example. – stangdon Apr 22 '21 at 11:25
  • @stangdon "Space Shuttle" was a program name, so there are many many instances of "Space Shuttle something" that don't refer to the space shuttle orbiter (which is what most people think of when talking about "the space shuttle"). https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/566250main_2011.07.05%20SHUTTLE%20ERA%20FACTS.pdf The NASA history page for the program has examples: https://www.history.nasa.gov/shuttlehistory.html – ColleenV Apr 22 '21 at 11:41

1 Answers1

1

"Penn Station" is a proper noun, and so it does not use the definite article.

"The port authority bus station" is a bus station managed by the port authority, and so it has an ownership aspect, similar to "the police station" or "the British Isles".

You could reasonably argue that over time these regular nouns morph into proper nouns. Like the concept of a port authority eventually becomes a name for a specific port authority you're locally familiar with, at which point it'd be written as Port Authority, and the bus station they run would be "the Port Authority bus station". Over time that could also be adopted as the common or official name of that bus station, at which point it might be reasonable to refer to it as just "Port Authority Bus Station".

It looks like Penn Station (fully Pennsylvania Station) was always named that way, but you can see these sorts of transformations of general nouns into proper nouns in things like "the church road" becoming "Church Road", or "the main street" becoming "Main Street" etc.

elliotcm
  • 881
  • 3
  • 10