The Times: Which one?

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Quote:

BEIJING OLYMPICS’ OPENING CEREMONY BLENDS TECHNOLOGY AND TRADITION
By Philip Hersh, Special to The Times

The above is a quote of the title and author of an article about Beijing 2008 Olympics. published in August 9, 2008

When I try to relocate the article, I find that "special to The Times" means "special to the Los Angeles Times". Is it a way of referring to the Los Angeles Times by a short form, such as "The Times". But "The Times" may mean the newspaper published in London. Or the New York Times may also be referred by "The Times". This is pretty confusing.
What do you think?

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@fansy,

This is a snippet of an article from a newspaper, so you'd need to know which paper.

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@fansy,

fansy wrote:

This is pretty confusing.
What do you think?

I agree that it is confusing that so many papers can use the same short form.

It is confusing in the same way it is confusing to know more than one person with the same name.

(jes, fansy has identified the originating paper as the LA Times)

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fansy wrote:

When I try to relocate the article, I find that "special to The Times" means "special to the Los Angeles Times". Is it a way of referring to the Los Angeles Times by a short form, such as "The Times". But "The Times" may mean the newspaper published in London. Or the New York Times may also be referred by "The Times". This is pretty confusing.
What do you think?

It is not confusing at all. The possibility of ambiguity is zero, because the reader of the piece in its original location is aware that piece was published in the Los Angeles Times, because that is the newspaper they are holding in their hand, or the website they are looking at.

If you reading a story in the Salt Lake City Globe, and the reporter is described as "The Globe's special reporter", you would not wonder if he might work for the Toronto Globe.

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@contrex,

In this case, yes. Sometimes people will say something like "I read it in the Times", or "I read it in the Journal".

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People outside Britain may refer to the "London Times", formerly often printed thus, to avoid the ambiguity due to the popularity of "Times" as part of a newspaper title.

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@contrex,

contrex wrote:

If you reading a story in the Salt Lake City Globe, and the reporter is described as "The Globe's special reporter", you would not wonder if he might work for the Toronto Globe.

since the Toronto-based Globe and Mail is not referred to as the Globe, your comment here is meaningless

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

contrex wrote:

If you reading a story in the Salt Lake City Globe, and the reporter is described as "The Globe's special reporter", you would not wonder if he might work for the Toronto Globe.

since the Toronto-based Globe and Mail is not referred to as the Globe, your comment here is meaningless

You appear to have completely missed my point. The newspaper title examples are hypothetical. They need not exist. When I invented them I had absolutely no idea whether either of those titles existed. Maybe if I had expressed myself thus you would have understood:

If you reading a story in the Manchester Bugle, and the reporter is described as "The Bugle's special reporter", you would not wonder if he might work for the Edinburgh Bugle.

Or even better,

Newspaper titles, are often composed of a geographical identifier, such as the name of a city, (Kansas City, Edinburgh, Birmingham) and a title, (Star, Evening News, Post). Very often, for reasons of brevity, the newspaper will refer to itself by the title alone, for example "by the Post's special reporter". Confusion is not anticipated because it is presumed that the reader will remember which newspaper he or she is reading. However, (fansy please note!) when quoting material abstracted from publications it may be necessary to take steps to avoid such confusion.

I might add that the correct full title of the newspaper published in London (UK) is "The Times".

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Me wrote:

Newspaper titles,

That comma should not be there. Sorry!

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@contrex,

Quote:

BEIJING OLYMPICS’ OPENING CEREMONY BLENDS TECHNOLOGY AND TRADITION
By Philip Hersh, Special to The Times

I have found out that Hersh has written more than 100 articles for the LA Times. So does "special" mean that he is a special reporter for the LAT? or "special" means that he has written that article especially for the LAT. By the way I have not found any evidence to link this article with the London Times.

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@fansy,

fansy wrote:

Quote:
BEIJING OLYMPICS’ OPENING CEREMONY BLENDS TECHNOLOGY AND TRADITION
By Philip Hersh, Special to The Times

So does "special" mean that he is a special reporter for the LAT? or "special" means that he has written that article especially for the LAT.

Questions should end with a question mark.

It means that the story is special, that is not an ordinary news story, more like a feature.

Consider:

Quote:

In April, 1969, Alden Whitman sent me these questions and
came to Montreux for a merry interview shortly before my
seventieth birthday. His piece appeared in The New York
Times, April 19, 1969, with only two or three of my answers
retained. The rest are to be used, I suppose, as "Special to
The New York Times" at some later date by A. W., if he
survives, or by his successor.

Quote:

By the way I have not found any evidence to link this article with the London Times.

Why do you think that it is necessary to seek such evidence? Did you understand what has been written above?

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@contrex,

Quote:

By the way I have not found any evidence to link this article with the London Times.

By making the above additional statement, I just wanted to make sure that the correspondent had not written the said article for the Lond Times, and that he had written that article as a feature article for LAT.

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The Times: Which one?

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