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Reegis Posted 9 years ago
Grammar

Queen Elizabeth II is [the] head of the Anglican Church.

Hello.

Which of the sentences below is grammatically correct?

1) Queen Elizabeth II is head of the Anglican Church.
2) Queen Elizabeth II is the head of the Anglican Church.

Or maybe it depends on something?

I checked this in the dictionary and found phrases like:
- head of government
- head of State
- head of department
But I often see these titles with 'the', so really hard to say which one I should use...

  

Top answer

2) Queen Elizabeth II is the head of the Anglican Church. Both are OK—as you have already discovered for yourself. Since it is not capitalized, I suspect that 'the head' is more common.

— Mister Micawber

  • 2) Queen Elizabeth II is the head of the Anglican Church.
  • Both are OK—as you have already discovered for yourself.
  • Since it is not capitalized, I suspect that 'the head' is more common.
  • Ngram will not do a decent search for me (too many words), but a Google search gives: is the head of the Anglican Church — About 3,230,000 results is head of the Anglican Church — About 16,200 results
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3 Answers
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ReegisWhich of the sentences below is grammatically correct?1) Queen Elizabeth II is head of the Anglican Church.2) Queen Elizabeth II is the head of the Anglican Church.

Both are OK—as you have already discovered for yourself. Since it is not capitalized, I suspect that 'the head' is more common. Ngram will not do a decent search for me (too many words),

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Rather illogically, when only one person can have a title at at time, no article is normally used after some verbs, such as be, elect, make and appoint:

He is president of France.

He was elected president of the USA.

They made him king.

He was appointed prime minister.

In other words, the article is usually left o

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Queen Elizabeth II is head of the Anglican Church.

With certain nouns that are concerned with the office or role in some particular organisation (or even a country) it is possible to omit the determiner, and for that reason they are called 'bare role' noun phrases. NPs like president, treasurer, secretary as well as head are typical examples.

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