EBIT acronym grammar

20:58 Jul 21, 2019 

Thank you for saying so. I'm very glad.

19:12 Jul 21, 2019 

Thank you very much for your note. Most helpful. One of the best things about KudoZ is that it can be an opportunity to learn.

16:03 Jul 21, 2019 

16:00 Jul 21, 2019 

23:17 Jul 20, 2019 

That's a useful rule, but it's not applicable here. It's true that a name or phrase that would take a definite article when written in full retains it when abbreviated as an initialism (i.e., the letters are pronounced separately: the British Broadcasting Corporation is the BBC, not just BBC) but usually loses it when it's an acronym (pronounced as a word: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is NATO, not the NATO).

However, that's not the reason why EBIT, an acronym, doesn't normally take an article. The reason is that it wouldn't take an article if it were written in full (earnings before interest and taxes). Initialisms of which the latter is true don't take an article either: human immunodeficiency virus is HIV, not the HIV. And to take a financial example, ROI, which is not an acronym (you pronounce it AR-OH-EYE, not ROY) normally has no article, because "return on investment" doesn't either.

Some initialisms lose the article that the full form would take, like acronyms (the University of California Los Angeles is UCLA, not the UCLA). And a few acronyms retain the article: the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes is/was usually the NAAFI (pronounced "naffy"), not NAAFI.

22:07 Jul 20, 2019 

The rule with acronyms is that they take the definite article when pronounced as the names of the individual letters in sequence, e.g. UN, CBI, WHO, and do not take the definite article, when pronounced as words, e.g. FIFA, UNESCO. It follows therefore that as EBIT and EBITDA are pronounced as words they do not take the definite article.

13:42 Jul 20, 2019 

I think the criterion you've been given is the right one; I don't think you should ignore what they sound like when read mentally.

I think you treat them just as you would treat any other financial indicator in the singular, "revenue", "cash flow", "working capital", and so on.

13:35 Jul 20, 2019 

EBIT and EBITDA are interesting cases, I think. On the one hand, for purposes of article use they generally behave like the full form of the acronym, which means they behave like "earnings" (the E), and this doesn't usually take an article. However, they are treated as singular nouns, so they don't behave exactly like "earnings":

Earnings were disappointing / up on last year.
EBIT was disappointing / up on last year.

A definite article could be required where it would be required with "earnings":

We failed to achieve the earnings we were hoping for last year.
We failed to achieve the EBIT we were hoping for last year.

And sometimes, because they're singular, they could take an indefinite article where "earnings" takes no article:

The business unit achieved respectable earnings of CHF 3.8 million.
The business unit achieved a respectable EBIT of CHF 3.8 million.
(The latter is quoted from a financial website.)

That's how I see it, anyway. I hope this is helpful.