The Golden Arches Logo and Ronald McDonald Design are trademarks of McDonald’s Corporation

[kadioguy]

[From a fry box of McDonald’s]

The Fry Box Design, The Golden Arches Logo and Ronald McDonald Design are trademarks of McDonald’s Corporation and its affiliates.

[Source]
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1. Why is there not "the" before "Ronald McDonald Design" while there is one before "Fry Box Design" and "Golden Arches Logo"?

2. Do you think there should be "the" before "trademarks of McDonald’s Corporation and its affiliates"? Or is it optional?

 

[emsr2d2]

As long as the person who wrote that knows the official name of each of those things, I would assume they've got it right and that the word "The" appears in only two of those official names.

The fact that they capitalised "The" before "Golden Arches Logo" suggests to me that they know it's part of the full name. It appears that "McDonalds Corporation" and "Ronald McDonald Design" are official titles that don't contain "The".

I'm sure if you go onto the McDonald's corporate website, you could probably find out for yourself if that's the case.

 

[jutfrank]

1. I see what you're saying. It seems as if the word The before Fry Box Design and Golden Arches Logo is determining the words Design/Logo respectively. I don't think it is. I think in the first case it's determining Box and in the second case it's determining Arches.

2. No, definitely not. No article is needed there.

 

[kadioguy]

I've done a quick research, and now I think that the person who wrote that didn't get it right. In my opinion,

The fry box design, the Golden Arches logo and the Ronald McDonald design are trademarks of McDonald’s Corporation and its affiliates.

PS - I see why "the" before "trademarks" is not needed, because they are not all of the trademarks, just three of them. So "... are (three) trademarks of McDonald’s Corporation and its affiliates".

 

[Tdol]

I may be a lazy researcher but "the Ronald McDonald design" brings up three results from my Google search and none of them come from the company. I guess that exact phrase is not a trademark. Actually, "Ronald McDonald design" only brings up 1,100 results. You get 13,500,000 for " original ronald mcdonald design".

 

[kadioguy]

I may be a lazy researcher but "the Ronald McDonald design" brings up three results from my Google search and none of them come from the company. I guess that exact phrase is not a trademark. Actually, "Ronald McDonald design" only brings up 1,100 results. You get 13,500,000 for " original ronald mcdonald design".

I would say "the Ronald McDonald design" actually refers to this:

 

[emsr2d2]

Is that a photo of an actual McDonald's box? If so, I think you can be satisfied that they know what they're talking about!

 

[kadioguy]

Is that a photo of an actual McDonald's box?

Yes.

If so, I think you can be satisfied that they know what they're talking about!

Do you mean that even enough the grammar is incorrect, they know what they are talking about, and that's enough?

 

[5jj]

Yes.

Do you mean that even enough if the grammar is incorrect, they know what they are talking about, and that's enough?

.

 

[kadioguy]

Sorry for the typo. I meant to write "even though".

 

[5jj]

Even though the grammar is incorrect establishes your certainty of the incorrectness.

 

[kadioguy]

Even though the grammar is incorrect establishes your certainty of the incorrectness.

Um, yes, I do mean that. I think that the text on the fry box should be modified, as I said in post #4.