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1. Why would you put the in front of the title/position word when doing without it would make more sense?

This deals with the professor Smith.

2. I was thinking you would normally put no articles in front of title words when the title words are considered very lofty in status and if I may be insolent, some words below might leave some doubt as to them being loafy to a such degree to be placed in such a high pedestal.

He has been active as Facilitator and served as secretary and editor. (Then, what makes it good to have the article "the" here?) He was the Webmaster for the seminar.

Who decides the words "Facilitator" and "Webmaster" be capitalized and the words "secretary" and "editor" not be capitalized?

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

1-- Your sample sentence is wrong. This deals with Professor Smith or This deals with the professor, Smith are your only options.

2-- Lofty, not loafy. However, it has nothing to do with status and everything to do with whether the title is also the name of the position. Capitalization is decided rather cavalierly, but it should rightly be done only when it is the specific title of an individual. I would without hesitation have written: He has been active as (a) facilitator and served as (the) secretary and editor. He was (the) webmaster for the seminar. The article is often optional, and has to do with whether the position is unique in the organization.

Mister Micawber · Answer

Correction: in #1, a third possibility is This deals with the Professor Smith, where the is stressed to separate him/her as a famous or infamous Professor Smith as distinct from other Professor Smiths (or Professors Smith). This is not a common use.
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Believer · Answer

Thank you.

I think I posted a post regarding this and in it, I think, I said that I have seen enough cases where the name comes right after the phrase "the something" and here I meant "something" to mean a title.

Note: There aren't any commas.

e,g,

the baker John

the fabuloue baker John

the tenor John Ames

the incomparable tenor John Ames

Are you saying all the examples are wrong? Maybe I am doubles but I am sure I have seen numerous cases of them in prints.

Mister Micawber · Answer

I agree that this form appears a lot without commas, and with a little research, I came up with the following excellent explanation:

[url=http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm]Sometimes the appositive and the word it identifies are so closely related that the comma can be omitted, as in "His wife Eleanor suddenly decided to open her own business." We could argue that the name "Eleanor" is not essential to the meaning of the sentence (assuming he has only one wife), and that would suggest that we can put commas both before and after the name (and that would, indeed, be correct). But "his wife" and "Eleanor" are so close that we can regard the entire phrase as one unit and leave out the commas. With the phrase turned around, however, we have a more definite parenthetical element and the commas are necessary: "Eleanor, his wife, suddenly decided to open her own business." Consider, also, the difference between "College President Ira Rubenzahl voted to rescind the withdrawal policy" (in which we need the name "Ira Rubenzahl" or the sentence doesn't make sense) and "Ira Rubenzahl, the college president, voted to rescind the withdrawal policy" (in which the sentence makes sense without his title, the appositive, and we treat the appositive as a parenthetical element, with a pair of commas).[/url]

I think that the omission of commas in such short, close identifications is stylistically good as well.

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