Timeline for Is there a missing definite article before caliph in 'the group's leader, XYZ, as (the) caliph'?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 1, 2014 at 13:52 | comment | added | Peeja | The reasons "director" can be used without "the" here is because it's a title. After the appointment, you could refer to her as Director Jill Deupi. You couldn't refer to her as "New Director Jill Deupi", because "new director" isn't the name of the position. (You could call her "the new director, Jill Deupi".) | |
| Aug 8, 2014 at 7:23 | comment | added | anotherDev | @user62015: Hi, just wanted to chime in here - Speaking of articles, your first comment should've read "Thanks!!! You made sense....". The "the" was not needed ;) | |
| Jun 30, 2014 at 15:52 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @user62015: I completely understand your problem. I'm just saying that some "sources" (BBC, The Times newspaper, New Yorker magazine, etc.) are pretty reliable. Not that you're wrong for asking about this particular usage here, but you should probably expect them to be right rather than you, if they seem to be violating what you currently understand to be "normal English". Also note that the BBC numbers to educate and inform among its stated objectives, so they might tend to use "less common, but still valid" forms more often than you might otherwise expect. | |
| Jun 30, 2014 at 15:36 | comment | added | user62015 | @FumbleFingers I completely agree with you. But problem is "I am not a native-English speaker". And as you know "articles" are tricky in English! But honestly people help a lot on this website and I appreciate all of them! | |
| Jun 30, 2014 at 15:23 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @user62015: It's a well-presented question, but I would advise you to be a little more "accepting" if you encounter usages on something like a BBC site that you find "odd". Typos are always possible anywhere, but the chances of you coming across an actual stylistic choice error are probably vanishingly small compared to the possibility that you've simply not encountered some deliberately-used construction before. | |
| Jun 30, 2014 at 15:13 | vote | accept | user62015 | ||
| Jun 30, 2014 at 15:10 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @user62015: It's hard to identify/articulate "rules" in this area (mainly because they're usually only tendencies at best), but I think omitting the article in your own example is definitely "better". Not least because the office of "caliph" didn't previously exist. Also note that the word as is entirely optional there. | |
| Jun 30, 2014 at 15:05 | comment | added | user62015 | Thanks!!! You made the sense. Could you please let me know, should we use an article before we mention positions and appointments or we can also omit an article? | |
| Jun 30, 2014 at 15:05 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | I particularly like your first example, because I thoroughly endorse the slight distinction which disposes the writer to use an article in the second reference but not the first. All four combinations of null/the + null/the are in principle "valid", but in that exact context, null + the seems stylistically "better" to me. | |
| Jun 30, 2014 at 3:22 | history | answered | J.R.♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |