Talk:False title

Comments from Village Pump

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I don't see why you chose "false title" rather than "coined titled"; the latter is more neutral, and doesn't require "(English usage)" as part of the title.

I also think that the article steers perilously close to being a WP:NOR violation. Three of the seven citations are examples that you've found, and don't mention the subject of the article at all; three are essentially dictionary/usage discussion, and the seventh is an opinion piece (in the New York Times, true, but still an opinion piece). Putting together information like this is often described as synthesis; among other things, there seems to be a failure here to establish this topic as something notable in an encyclopedic sense. And if the article is not likely to grow behind what it is now (or even is to be trimmed back by removing the three examples), then wiktionary may be a better place. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't go with "coined title" because it seems to be Theodore Bernstein's phrase. The two usage compendia I looked at went with "false title". However, I can see your point that it's more neutral (despite what I'm sure was Bernstein's intended connotation of "coining" in the sense of "counterfeiting"). I don't have strong feelings on the name, and I'd prefer one without "title" at all.

As for OR, I don't see how you can apply that to the article as a whole. It's mostly from authorities on the subject. My initial example was indeed one I found instead of another one from one of the sources. That strikes me as a trivial point, but it's also trivial to change if you think it matters. I'll do so shortly. I can see how the last paragraph of the article is OR, so I'll take it out.

As for notability, I'd think something notable enough for MWDEU, The Columbia Dictionary of Standard American English, and the New York Times is notable enough for us.

As for Wiktionary, the article says more than just a dictionary definition—it's journalese and comes from Time, there's been a change in the capitalization, and there's disagreement over whether it can be ambiguous. And there's room for growth: more on the history, including the recent application to inanimate objects if a source shows up, a linguistic analysis of how the change occurred if someone does that (I'm hoping for Language Log), and of course a defense of the practice if someone can find a source. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Some linguistic analysis

Here is a Language Log post where linguist Geoffrey Pullum discusses novelist Dan Brown's use of this construction. Ntsimp (talk) 16:07, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Great! And I'd never have found it—none of the terms I've been searching on appear in that post. At the moment I'm not feeling tempted to rename the article "anarthrous nominal premodifier", but others may disagree. R. L. Trask, a linguist, called it a "preposed appositive" in Mind the Gaffe, by the way, and that's tempting me a little more, but the problem is that his term includes the ones with an opening article ("The Harvard University paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould..."), so should the article be called "Preposed appositives without 'the'"? By the way, unlike Pullum, Trask hated, hated, hated this construction in every context. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 23:05, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Another option would be to merge this with "appositive". —JerryFriedman (Talk) 23:11, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Using the construction

I'm by no means sure we want to avoid this construction (much as I dislike it) in this article. That actually strikes me as kind of POV. I hoped for some amusement value in using it only for the person who accepted it in some contexts. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be an essay: WP:FALSETITLE and a section within the Manual of Style: MOS:PSEUDOTITLE Arlo James Barnes 16:00, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Confusing two things?

I wonder if this article, including the first sentence of the lead, is confusing two things: false titles, and false titles that precede the target noun (anarthrous nominal premodifiers). I think Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, for example, contains a false title that follows the noun. It's a false title since it contains no article. 208.50.124.65 (talk) 22:21, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

False comma to boot

And then there are the people (probably most common in PR-land and their amateur imitators) who haphazardly sprinkle commas into their false titles. The "False title" article needs to mention false commas. Examples:

Comprehensive business accounts package, Prophet, has been updated to version 4.

Shoe giants, Clarks, is to hire 600 more workers.

Acclaimed soprano, Charlotte Church sang here on Saturday.

JamesD'Alexander (talk) 11:49, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Should reference Monty Python skit: Psychiatry - Silly Sketch

Monty Python (John Cleese & Carol Cleveland) poked some fun at the issue:

Psychiatrist: (whispering) Er, you don't think you should make it clear that I'm a psychiatrist?

Receptionist: What?

Psychiatrist: Well, I could be any type of doctor.

Receptionist: Well I can't come in and say 'Psychiatrist Larch' or 'Dr Larch who is a psychiatrist'. Oh, anyway look, it's written on the door.

Wikinetman (talk) 10:45, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

It knows no limits

Day before yesterday in The Guardian: "She’d written a novel – an early take on what would become The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms – and sent it out to publishers, also taking science fiction and fantasy writing workshop Viable Paradise, where she gave short stories a try for the first time, and began selling her work." OR, sadly. Wegesrand (talk) 06:09, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Linguists: Is This a Complication, or an Underlying Confusion?

Thinking about former presidents: Today even the very style-attentive news outlets are writing things like "The Bidens visited former President Carter ...". Now former presidents are entitled to the title for life; Jimmy Carter can still be called President Carter. And "former president" is not a title, although let's say it might be adduced as a "False Title". But wtf is going on with the capitalization -- former little f, President big P? My suspicion is: people today don't know when they're using a title and when they're not! What I'm curious about is: if so, is this the cause or a symptom of the whole False Titles problem? Linguists will understand that this is not meant frivolously. Wegesrand (talk) 15:28, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Is there a real problem? Delete this article?

The article appears to assume that people all over the world are reading 'preposed appositive phrases' (and they do sound painful) as falsely referring to personal titles. But I have never, once, encountered anybody making that mistake. IMHO, there is no such problem.

If I read "former President Clinton" or "the former President Clinton", or either of those without capitalising "President", it simply does not occur to me that "former" would be a title. Perhaps obviously, in this case. But neither does it occur to me that "novelist Ernest Hemingway" refers to a personal title "novelist", like "Sir Ernest Hemingway".

What there may be, instead, is a problem of misguided pedants surmising that, if a particular grammatical construction might conceivably be misread by any reader, then that construction must be anathematised—with effect for every single writer.

Then, further, the anathematisation may more likely produce a different problem, which might be called for the sake of this argument false specification. If I were to read "Harvard University paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould", I would assume that he is one of a number of paleontologists at that institution; but, if I were to read "The Harvard University paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould", I would be tempted to suppose that he is the only paleontologist there, as though there were a comma after "paleontologist". In that light, it would be better to write "Harvard University paleontologist ...".

In sum, this article seems to me to be seriously misguided. It makes out that there is a problem of false ascription, when actually there is none. And it gives undue prominence to people who ought to know better. I hear that the article is being used to batter editors who 'fail' to use a 'the'. Now that this is happening, user Errantios here is of opinion that WP would be the better for this article being deleted. I invite comments before proceeding to a formal proposal for deletion. Errantios (talk) 06:13, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

It's an encylopedic article describing a real thing described in reliable secondary sources, and meets the requirements of the WP:GNG guideline. Whether the article could be better is a different matter, but no, it shouldn't be deleted. Popcornfud (talk) 12:57, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

This proposal is misguided and quixotic. I confidently predict that the article will not be deleted because you dislike it, or for any other reason. It describes an actual term and is sourced, and it discusses the "controversy" about use of the term. A formal proposal for deletion would be a waste of time. Carlstak (talk) 15:32, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

PS:Here's a bit of levity that speaks to this frivolous (in my opinion) proposal. I followed the fossil link in a 2009 post above and found this bit from the linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum:

Once again the strange anarthrous use of an occupational noun. And of course, Geologist Charles Brophy is dead meat. The simple fact is that if you are ever mentioned on page 1 of a Dan Brown novel you will be mentioned with an anarthrous occupational nominal premodifier ("Renowned linguist Geoff Pullum staggered across the savage splendor of the forsaken Santa Cruz campus, struggling to remove the knife plunged unnaturally into his back by a barbarous millionaire novelist"), and you will have died a painful and horrible death by page 2, along with several curiously ill-chosen clichés and mangled idioms.

Carlstak (talk) 16:04, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Popcornfud and Carlstak—this article describes a real topic that has SIGCOV and is, at least sometimes, described as 'false title(s)'. Whether and how to improve the article is another matter, as is the appropriateness of the name 'false title'. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 17:20, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

At least one style guide disagrees with reading The Harvard University paleontologist as suggesting only one person holds this 'title' or label, this from The Guardian:

Do not leave out the definite article in such constructions as “style guru David Marsh said ...” It should be “The style guru David Marsh” (if there are other style gurus) or “David Marsh, the style guru, ...” (if you feel only one person merits such a description)

--MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 17:27, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

The discussion is diverting into the debate among the sources as to whether a particular grammatical construction is advisable, which is the territory of WP:NOTHOW. Some of that debate—the chapter by Charles F. Meyer—proceeds upon a non sequitur that, because a particular construction might be read as identifying a false title, it ís so read. Meyer presents evidence that the construction is used, but not that it leads to a mistake. The article provides no evidence at all that, even in now unusual cases where the adjective is capitalised, it actually leads to a belief that the person referred to bears a title. Its opening, however, seems to suppose that there is such a problem. Pointing to just one scholar who thinks that there is a problem (his own few citations are not accessible through the link) is not enough. The article, in my view, fails on notability by failing WP:INDISCRIMINATE and also seems to have been understood by some in a way that makes it fail WP:NOTHOW. The article should be deleted. Errantios (talk) 23:41, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

It is a real problem. When I went to school, the construction was ungrammatical, wrong, not English. Now it has entered the language, although the grammarians who support it are having trouble coming up with an acceptable name and description for it. In this situation, appositive constructions are running wild. Here are a couple of examples from my collection:

• "A Tibetan monk carries a portrait of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, during a function organised to mark 'Losar' or the Tibetan New Year in Kathmandu." (The Independent, 4/3/14)
• "On this day, 20 December 1973, Spanish fascist prime minister who was hand-picked as general Francisco Franco's successor, Luis Carrero Blanco, was assassinated in Madrid." (Facebook page Working Class History, 20/12/20)

The problem is at least twofold: (1) no one knows what a title is any more, and what a title is not; (2) nobody knows about using commas to denote non-restrictive appositives. Wegesrand (talk) 13:39, 14 May 2026 (UTC)