Annenberg
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This past semester, the lectures for ling0001 took place in a classroom located in Penn's Annenberg School for Communication, and one of the students in the course asked me something that I've wondered about myself from time to time: Why is it "The Annenberg School for Communication" rather than "The Annenberg School of Communications"?
There are two questions here:
- Why "for" rather than "of", as in most other post-secondary "School of X" institutions?
- Why singular "communication" rather than plural "communications"?
Compare the many web hits for "school of communications", where other programs made the opposite choice of preposition and plurality.
Wikipedia deepens the question by telling us that
The school was established in 1958 by Wharton School alum Walter Annenberg as the Annenberg School of Communications. The name was changed to its current title in 1990.
One clue can be seen in this plaque, displayed in the building's lobby next to a bust of WHA:
An informed source explained to me that WHA wanted to make it clearer that students and faculty should use communication for worthy ends. He felt that "for" conveyed purpose where "of" conveyed possession, and that "for" invited action while "of" brought to mind passive acceptance of the status quo.
And the plaque's text also suggests why he preferred not to share plurality with the world's many Ministries of Communications.
So this goes into my notes for future work on the semantics of prepositions and plurality. . .
Stephen Goranson said,
December 21, 2025 @ 9:51 am
Also, reportedly, the U of Southern California School of Journalism was renamed The Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. It publishes the International Journal of Communication.
Also, as you would know, Dropsie College transitioned to the Annenberg Research Institute before becoming part of U Penn, now the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
Bybo said,
December 21, 2025 @ 10:14 am
Is it entirely coincidental that the German would be something like ‘Annenberg-Hochschule für Kommunikation’?
Philip Taylor said,
December 21, 2025 @ 10:24 am
Vaguley related, but we used to have the RNIB ("Royal (National) Institute for the Blind") [1, 2] — now we have the RNIB ("Royal (National) Institute of the Blind").
——–
[1] Originally "British and Foreign Society for Improving the Embossed Literature of the Blind"
[2]
Stephen Goranson said,
December 21, 2025 @ 10:56 am
In an article noting the end of Mr. Annenberg's service as Ambassador to the UK, the NY Times (Oct. 14, 1974) reported:
"He said that Mr. Nixon and Dean Rusk, former Secretary of State, were advising him now on one of his next projects—a school of international communications to be established in New York or Washington."
Evidently, the location changed to Philadelphia's Dropsie College FOR Hebrew and Cognate Learning, a home with some distinguished faculty and publications, including Jewish Quarterly Review. Annenberg, of course, owned several publications.
Mai Kuha said,
December 21, 2025 @ 12:23 pm
The "worthy ends" rationale brings to mind the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.
Gregory Kusnick said,
December 21, 2025 @ 12:39 pm
One might naively suppose that the primary activity at a School of Communications is teaching, whereas the primary activity at a School for Communication is communicating, the latter being perhaps more of a two-way street than the former.
Philip Taylor said,
December 21, 2025 @ 12:45 pm
OK, so what is the primary activity of a school of whales, and what would be the primary activity of a school for whales, if such a thing existed ?!
J.W. Brewer said,
December 21, 2025 @ 12:59 pm
Due to university-to-university variation in numbering conventions, I never took ling0001. Instead (and many decades ago now), I took a class known as Ling 110a, which I suspect was broadly similar. IIRC, it was taught in a classroom in HGS, which when uninitialized (which most people didn't bother to do) meant "Hall of Graduate Studies." Not "of Graduate Study," FWIW. And by that point in time, at least, there was no taboo against classes for undergraduates being offered on the premises.
I think American academia has plenty of centers or institutes or programs etc. "for the Study of X" and also plenty of ditto of the roughly synonymous "for X Studies."
Julian Hook said,
December 21, 2025 @ 1:07 pm
A few weeks ago I reviewed a student's CV, which indicated that he had presented a paper at the Society of Music Theory. I told him that it's actually the Society *for* Music Theory. On reflection, I decided that "for" is more appropriate when what follows is an area of interest (Society for Music Theory, Society for Creative Anachronism), but "of" may be preferable when what follows identifies a group of people (Society of Highway Engineers, Society of Friends). But there are exceptions, such as the Society of Hospital Medicine. The student replied that he suddenly imagined that the Society of Hospital Medicine comprised a bunch of prescription bottles having spirited discussions.
David Marjanović said,
December 21, 2025 @ 1:13 pm
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is written by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature and published by the International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature.
Philip Taylor said,
December 21, 2025 @ 2:02 pm
And just in case anyone believes that David jests —
Dick Margulis said,
December 21, 2025 @ 2:31 pm
The chaotic evil alignment of lines of text on that plaque belie the institution's goal of communication.
Stephen Goranson said,
December 21, 2025 @ 2:53 pm
Dick Margulis: "The chaotic evil alignment of lines of text on that plaque belie the institution's goal of communication."
Was that an attempt at a joke? Or do you really seek authors who agree it was not?
J.W. Brewer said,
December 21, 2025 @ 2:54 pm
If you ask me to solve for X in "school for X," the first nominee that comes to my mind is "scandal," due to (apparently) the continuing cultural prominence of Sheridan's play by that title that premiered way back in 1777. That said, the "School for X" phrasing currently seems common in public secondary schools in New York City, e.g. "Bronx High School for the Visual Arts," "Community School for Social Justice," "Boerum Hill School for International Studies," "EMBER Charter School for Mindful Education, Innovation and Transformation," "Murray Bergtraum High School for Business Careers," "Rockaway Park High School for Environmental Sustainability," and many many many more. Also some "Academy for X" titles, but also plenty of "School of X" ones, and I'm not sure there's a clear pattern that explains the choice among variations.
Philip Taylor said,
December 21, 2025 @ 3:06 pm
Not really sure how to interpret "Or do you really seek authors who agree it was not ?" but I would certainly agree with Dick that the Institute would have done well to seek advice before going for that horrible hotch-potch of non-alignment.
VVOV said,
December 21, 2025 @ 4:00 pm
I don't have much to add to the discussion regarding "of" vs. "for" above, but regarding the singular/plural issue, my intuition (as an outsider to this institution, etc) is that "Communications" here would refer to the academic study of communication, while "Communication" refers to the act/concept of communication itself. Of course the school *is* a place for academic study, but perhaps it's signaling that it aims for such study to be down-to-earth, practical, applied, etc.
Plural abstract nouns generally are a feature of an "academic" register which has been discussed on languagelog before, e.g.: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4376
Dick Margulis said,
December 21, 2025 @ 5:13 pm
@Stephen Goranson: What Philip Taylor said. An important aspect of written communication is readability. Granted readability is only tangentially related to linguistics, and I suppose it's given short shrift in a school for communication. But that's merely a consequence of academic bias against craft knowledge.
Michael Watts said,
December 21, 2025 @ 10:01 pm
It doesn't look like a joke to me; the choice of preposition is fixed by the noun to which it is attached. You can no more have an International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature than you could have an International Code on Zoological Nomenclature.
People wonder about "School for Communication" because that is a usage error.
Michael Vnuk said,
December 21, 2025 @ 11:31 pm
On a related note, the Australian government includes a Department of Education, while the South Australian government has a Department for Education. Australia has a Minister for Defence, while New Zealand has a Minister of Defence. (Names taken from official websites.)
Ryan said,
December 22, 2025 @ 4:17 am
A colleague this summer went to the Active Shooter Conference. I worried that on/for confusion might bring the wrong sort of attendee.
Adrian Bailey said,
December 22, 2025 @ 11:55 am
Some years ago, the traditional names of UK government departments underwent various changes, for example Department of Education became Department for Education. Although some people clearly felt this was important, most people either didn't notice or felt it was pointless. This kind of tinkering isn't exactly nerdview, but it's akin to it.
J.W. Brewer said,
December 22, 2025 @ 4:39 pm
Further to Michael Vnuk's report from Down Under, it appears that Tasmania has a "Department for Education, Children and Young People," but the other four Australian states (N.S.W., Qld., Vic., W.A.) all have Departments of Education, N.Z. by contrast has a *Ministry* of Education.
J.W. Brewer said,
December 22, 2025 @ 4:51 pm
Follow-up: This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_sector_organisations_in_New_Zealand seems to include 11 names of the form "Ministry of __" and 9 of the form "Ministry for __," in both cases including some that seem to be branded primarily with a Maori name including no preposition with the English name as an add-on. I'm not sure there's any coherent theory of a clean semantic distinction between "of" and "for" that will completely explain which agency has which out of the 20 total.
John Swindle said,
December 22, 2025 @ 7:28 pm
Don't know if I said this before, but when I was in junior high school, about age 14, a friend's mother taught Communications (or maybe it was Communication) at Kansas Wesleyan University. Despite this, she took no interest in our ham radio activity and didn't even know Morse code. I suspected that her "Communications" might just be another name for the subject we studied every year that varied between "English" and "Language" depending on the textbook.
Julian said,
December 22, 2025 @ 9:35 pm
Generally the use of grammaticised prepositions** is surprisingly unstable.
"I'm bored with my job."
"I'm tired of my job."
?"I'm bored of my job"?
If you listen closely you'll hear many similar examples with different prepositions.
Just this morning I saw in a blog post: "I'm fed up of this claim "
The variability is probably more common in speech.
**Grammaticised preposition: a preposition that has no real meaning, but is there only because there's a grammatical rule that the item in that position must be a preposition phrase.
"I'm afraid of dogs."
*"I'm afraid dogs."
John Swindle said,
December 22, 2025 @ 11:47 pm
Unlike English, Esperanto has a preposition "je" that can be used when no other preposition obviously fits. It's often used in expressions of time ("je la kvara" – "at four"), but for example a book about Muhammad by Italo Chiussi is entitled "Je la flanko de la profeto" ("By the Prophet's Side"). The book is supposed to be good, and it's somewhere on my reading list.
Yves Rehbein said,
December 23, 2025 @ 4:03 am
Oh @Bybo, from the English view on German it would have to be one long word, Kommunikationshochschule, /s is Saxon genitive. The attributive noun may be postponed Latin style, Kommunikationshochschule Anneberg(e), the (e) is silent and not written and does not carry case as far as I can tell.
This seems to be meaningful for the difference between school of communications – genitive – or school for communication(e)– accusative/dative (instrumental), the e is silent and not written. Probably it should be -i/y but that makes it sound like an adjective or diminutive and it must have been decided collectively by the community of speakers to feel too silly in the mouthy (L. commūnicātiō, commūnicātiōnis, commūnicātiōnī, commūnicātiōnem).
J.W. Brewer said,
December 23, 2025 @ 8:55 am
When I was first taking German circa 1979 and was being introduced to unpredictable cross-linguistic variations in preposition usage, one detail that stuck with me is that while in English one would be afraid "of the dog," in German one one would instead be afraid "vor dem Hund," where "vor" is cognate with "before" and its core senses tend to be "in front of" either literally or metaphorically. Which made reasonable metaphorical sense to me but still didn't result in idiomatic English phrasing if you translated "vor" more literally.
While there are plenty of situations in English where multiple prepositions could fit into a given construction, some of the examples above like "fed up of this claim" sound sufficiently ESLish to my ear that they make me curious about the L1 of whoever produced them and whether they might be an overliteral calque of the correct phrasing from that language. Some well-known variations in AmEng like waiting "on line" versus "in line" are often ascribed to ESLish influence that eventually became quasi-standard.
Circling back to the variation here, I note a possibly relevant German usage, namely that the Austrian government includes for example a Bundesministerium für Finanzen, which may be Englished either as "[Federal] Ministry of Finance" (more idiomatic to my ear) or "Ministry for Finance(s)" (slavishly "literal" but not necessarily intolerably unidiomatic in English. You apparently can't idiomatically use "von" (usually thought of as German for "of") in that situation, e.g. the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence [sic] is glossed in German as the Ministerium für Verteidigung.
Rodger C said,
December 23, 2025 @ 10:26 am
I suspect that "fed up of this claim" is just an example of the tendency of "of" to devour other prepositions in this type of construction among Young People Today.
David Marjanović said,
December 23, 2025 @ 11:49 am
You could use the genitive, but the only instance I know of where it is actually used is the official name of the German ministry of interior affairs: Bundesministerium des Innern, für Bau und Heimat ("of the interior, for construction and home-in-the-geographic-sense"). The part before the comma has been grandfathered in; des Innern isn't even Standard German anymore – today it would be des Inneren with a whole extra syllable. Idiomatic today are für Inneres and für innere Angelegenheiten, or of course, above all, the compound Innenministerium. (Likewise Finanzministerium and Verteidigungsministerium.)
Julian said,
December 23, 2025 @ 6:20 pm
@ JL Brewer
The full comment was:
"I'm fed up of how often this is presented uncritically. No, it's not okay to invade a country because a majority of the population on some of that country's territory is ethnolinguistically similar to you.
It wasn't okay when the Nazis wanted the Sudetenland, it wasn't okay in the wars of the former Yugoslavia, it wasn't okay in countless wars of aggression rooted in that principle, and it's not okay when it's the nationalist dictator of a former empire trying to get that empire back."
This comment was by SonOfTheDesert, In this Guardian article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/22/eu-vladimir-putin-ukraine-volodymyr-zelenskyy-russia-president#comments
You can click through on the commenter's handle to see their other comments. They don't sound like an L2 speaker.
Philip Taylor said,
December 24, 2025 @ 4:11 am
I would agree with Julian — the correct use of the apostrophes in "it's not okay", "that country's territory", "It wasn't okay", and most especially in "all countries' borders" would indicate an educated L1 speaker to me, albeit a younger one who has had the misfortune to grow up on a diet of "we could of", etc.
J.W. Brewer said,
December 24, 2025 @ 1:21 pm
I am now advised by Lexicographic Authority that "fed up of" is an attested idiom that is "informal, British." So if that's correct my hypothesis would now be that the Guardian commenter is not a native speaker of American English and his preposition choice is influenced by his exotic foreign L1.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fed%20up%20of
Philip Taylor said,
December 26, 2025 @ 7:38 am
Having now lain in bed and pondered this for two nights, I now wonder whether "fed up of" is modelled on "tired of" (as in maternal "I'm tired of your constant whining …"). They both seem to convey the same sentiment, or so it seems to me …
ajay said,
December 31, 2025 @ 5:08 am
Some years ago, the traditional names of UK government departments underwent various changes, for example Department of Education became Department for Education.
But not all of them! Out of 24 government departments there are 8 "Departments for", one "Department of", three "Ministries of" and three "Offices of". Almost all are headed by a "Secretary of State for" assisted by various "Ministers for". So, yes, the person in charge of the Ministry of Defence is not the Minister of Defence. But, even though his job title is not "minister" he is still a cabinet minister and should still be addressed as "Minister".
Philip Taylor said,
January 1, 2026 @ 5:31 am
I encountered what I think must surely be the most illogical of all for the first time yesterday — the "Centre of Taiwan Studies" at SOAS. They really study only the centre of Taiwan ?!
Incidentally (and totally off-topic), my reason for visiting that web site is that I am trying to find out whether Professor Michael Rand Hoare [1] is still alive. He and I were formerly colleagues and latterly friends, but I have not heard from him for some time and am rather concerned that he may have passed away. If anyone has news of him, could they please let me know ?
[1] Author of "Intimate Chinese", "Weighing Fire; European Lives in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Science", "Quest for the True Figure of the Earth : Ideas and Expeditions in Four Centuries of Geodesy" and many scientific papers.