Best practice to deal with need for “the” only for expanded acronym

Question

LaTeX's acronym packages are very, very handy. However, there is a writing requirement that it doesn't seem to get around.

First, I'd like to establish what I find useful about acronym packages, then describe how its utility may be compromised by a common use case. I use the acro package, and would like to stick with that if possible, but I suspect that most acronym packages will run into the problem.

Acronym packages allow me to use acronyms without keeping track of their first occurrences in a document, or significant section therein. The package will find the first occurrence and provide the short and long form, then use the short form thereafter.

The problem is that the long form often needs to be preceded by a definite article "the" whereas the short form does not. For example:

Bob hails from *the* Centre for Spaghetti Studies (CSS).
Bob hails from CSS.

*The* Centre for Spaghetti Studies's (CSS's) mandate is broad.
CSS's mandate is broad.

Because of this, I do have to keep track of the first occurrence, which pretty well negates the major reason for me to use any acronym package.

Is there any practice in composing LaTeX documents that can salvage the benefit of acronym packages?

Defining the long form to include "the" is not ideal. Let's say that I meant:

CSS scientists eat well.

On the first occurrence I would get:

*The* Centre for Spaghetti Studies scientists eat well.

What I really would have wanted is:

Centre for Spaghetti Studies scientists eat well.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Provided you have an up to date acro you can define a definite article and commands that make use of it. All you then have to do is define the acronym accordingly:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{acro}

\DeclareAcroArticle{definite}{the}
\DeclareAcroEnding{possessive}{'s}{'s}

\NewAcroCommand\dac{m}{\acrodefinite\UseAcroTemplate{first}{#1}}
\NewAcroCommand\Dac{m}{\acroupper\acrodefinite\UseAcroTemplate{first}{#1}}

\NewAcroCommand\Dacg{m}{%
  \acroupper
  \acrodefinite
  \acropossessive
  \UseAcroTemplate{first}{#1}%
}

\DeclareAcronym{css}{
  short = CSS ,
  long = Centre for Spaghetti Studies ,
  short-definite = \nospace ,
  long-possessive = '
}

\begin{document}

Bob hails from \dac{css}. \par
Bob hails from \dac{css}.

\acreset{css}

\Dacg{css} mandate is broad. \par
\Dacg{css} mandate is broad.

\acreset{css}

\Dac{css} scientists eat well. \par
\Dac{css} scientists eat well. \par

\end{document}

Answer 2

You can define a new template:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{book}
\usepackage{acro}
\DeclareAcronym{cd}{
 short = CD ,
 long = compact disc
 }

\DeclareAcronym{css}{
 short = CSS ,
 long = Centre for Spaghetti Studies
 } 
\NewAcroTemplate{long-short-the}{%
 \acroiffirstTF{%
 The
 \acrowrite{long}%
 \acspace(%
 \acroifT{foreign}{\acrowrite{foreign}, }%
 \acrowrite{short}%
 \acroifT{alt}{ \acrotranslate{or} \acrowrite{alt}}%
 \acrogroupcite
 )%
 }%
 {\acrowrite{short}}%
 } 
\begin{document}

\ac[first-style=long-short-the]{cd}, \ac{css}

\ac[first-style=long-short-the]{cd}
\end{document}