Grammar girl here, today's topic is the the, not as in the British 80s band, but as in

what to do when a sentence calls for a the, in front of a name or title that starts with

the the, like the New York Times.

So listener Rob Jones asked, do I have to use the word the twice?

For instance, it makes sense to ask a friend, have you heard the ghost soundtrack?

But what happens if the name of the movie starts with the, such as the fast and the furious?

It certainly doesn't sound correct to say, have you heard the, the fast and the furious

soundtrack?

But logically it makes sense to say it twice.

Rob's right that it seems technically correct but sounds horrible.

Whether it's right or wrong, if you write that for your English teacher, you're going

to get it circled with a red pan and marked AWK for awkward.

To get technical, most style guides don't address the double that issue, but I found one

that does, the New York Times style guide.

I don't own the book, but a friendly source at the times sent me the relevant entry,

which states that you use only one lower case the.

Their rationale for writing, I got the information from the Times reporter, instead of I got

the information from the Times reporter, is that the article that is grammatically

attached to the noun reporter, instead of to the title.

For example, you could leave out the words at the Times and just write, I got the information

from the reporter.

That rationale seems a little weak to me because it doesn't address why you don't include

...