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Believer Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

Article question

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?
  

Top 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 .

  • 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.
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4 Answers
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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
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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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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
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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, a

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