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I have made up the sentences below.

(1a) I told Jack, "Yesterday, I visited ABC Store and met with the manager, John Brown." (1b) I told Jack, "Yesterday, I visited ABC Store and met with manager John Brown."

(2a) I told Mary, "Last week, I went to the Faculty of Science and had an interesting interview with the dean, Bill Jackson."

(2b) I told Mary, "Last week, I went to the Faculty of Science and had an interesting interview with dean Bill Jackson."

I am not sure if I need the definite article. Thanks for your help.

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  • You'll have to give us the organisational chart for ABC store. Are there multiple managers?
    – Stuart F
    Commented Nov 30, 2023 at 11:25

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In a store, there is usually one person who is in charge of the daily running of the store, and that person is the manager.

But "manager" is a role, can be used like "coach" or "engineer" (for example) and used with a name, but without an article. "Dean" is another word like this.

If you omit "the", you don't imply that there is only one manager. There could be many. Though in context you would know that a faculty only has one dean.

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  • What this leaves out is that without the article, 'dean' and 'manger' become titles and while it's common usage to use titles before names for high positions, such as President Joe Biden, it's far less common for something like a store manager, so the usage would be odd without the article. For Dean... could go either way IMO
    – G. Ann - SonarSource Team
    Commented Nov 30, 2023 at 15:51
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    @G.Ann-SonarSourceTeam It is not as uncommon as you think. We're talking today with muralist Johnny "Spraypaint" Jones.
    – TimR on some device
    Commented Dec 1, 2023 at 16:13

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