Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello,
I know we don't usually use "the" in front of the title plus name,
but I am curious whether we can't attach "the" in front of any of the followings in any cases.

1. Director Zhang Yimou, left, with his movie's star Zhang Ziyi.
2. F.B.I. DIRECTOR WOMACK
3. President Lasker and Kitz watch the same coverage.

Struggling non-native English teacher

I think those are used as titles, as well.

The FBI director appeared on TV. FBI Director Jones appeared on TV.
The doctor gave him a prescription. Doctor Smith gave him a prescription.

Etc.

If you say "The" , I think you normally need commas round the names:

The President announced today that.........

President Smith announced today that.............

The President, Jane Smith, announced today that .......

(I'm not sure that "President Jane Smith" is considered the correct form in etiquette but I don't move in such circles)

But you would say:

The film director John Houston once said that..........

But no capitals in the last.

Nothing wrong with "President Jane Smith" or "President George Bush". When a title and a name appear in immediate sequence, there are two ways in which they can be related:

1. The title and the name are intended to comprise a single identity, so that, for example, "President George Bush" is meant to be taken together as the identifier of a definite unit. In this case, use of "The" would be redundant, and therefore unnecessary (even confusing), since it is already definite.

2. The title and the name are in apposition, which means that they are equal but different ways of saying the same thing, and have the same grammatical relationship to the rest of the sentence. In this case, commas are often used to set off the appositive expression, but not always:

"The President, George Bush, said Tuesday that..."

"The author Roald Dahl always hand-wrote his manuscripts on..."

In general, if the noun phrase is a formal title, commas are used. When the noun phrase is merely a discriptor, no commas are OK.

The decision about whether to use "The" to make the following noun phrase definite depends on whether it is already definite as it stands.

Larry Latham

I couldn't have put it better. In fact I couldn't have put it half as well.

Of course there's nothing wrong with "President George Bush" (linguistically speaking) . I suppose one of either President or George are not strictly necessary to identify him, though without going so far as to say "Bush" on its own. That might be what's jogging my memory about "correct" forms of address. But please let's not get into that.

Thank you all

One more question!

The usage of article "a" and " the" is always confusing,
so is there any book you recommand to clear it up?

I have grammar in use & advanced grammar in use.