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Do I necessarily need to insert the possessive pronoun her in the following sentence or can I just skip it?

Karen, a person, does X together with (her) friend Juliette.

I see that it's uncommon, but under specific circumstances (the back of a novel, or some kind of summary) this would sound right to me.

I suppose friend acts as the person's title here; for I'm pretty sure that it's okay to say She left the room with Doctor Jake.

I don't need to say a doctor / her doctor.

Can friend act as such a title?
Can other words, such as job titles (plumber), act as titles?

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    Friend has been used as a title in the past, and may be very occasionally heard in the present in a religious order such as the Quakers. That said, it is used almost exclusively as a form of address ("Good day, Friend Peterson"), and will at best sound old fashioned. It is not idiomatic in modern English and I would avoid it.
    – YonKuma
    Commented Jan 19 at 14:31
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    Here are a few written instances of ...together with husband David... But I wouldn't call husband a "title" there - it's "in apposition" to the name David (both nouns refer to the same thing). Consider also ...together with husband and... (usually, ...and children) where that optional second noun (husband's name) isn't present.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 19 at 17:54

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The two cases are not the same because the title Doctor can be part of a person's name (and so can Professor).

She left the room with her gynaecologist, Dr. Jake.

Words like friend and ordinary occupations are not titles.

Karen went shopping with her friend Juliette.

I had to call in Joe Smith, the plumber.

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  • Karen went shopping with husband John sounds fine to me without a determiner before husband, even though I wouldn't like it much without the second noun John. And although it's a bit less common, I wouldn't argue with the "reduced syntax" of Karen went shopping with friend Juliette.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 19 at 17:59
  • @Kate : Ignoratio elenchi, giving an answer to a similar but not identical question to the one asked. I didn't ask: Are those cases the same; for I know that they're not. I asked if the word could act this way, even though it was not a regular title. Sorry, if that wasn't clear.
    – Ole370
    Commented Jan 19 at 23:37
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I found an answer to my own question, but it's rather inconclusive.

What I'm describing in my question is what in linguistics is seemingly known as an anarthrous nominal premodifier (aka: a pseudo-title, a false title, a fake-title) [see Wikipedia]. They do exist, but they aren't regular titles, as they are not capitalized (~usually~). But they do act like titles in any other way.

They are primarily found in newspapers, which is where the problem arises. Newspapers have style guides, specific style guides. So some newspapers (e.g., New York Times) don't even allow a writer to use them, whereas others even encourage it. The same holds true for linguistics, which also can't decide, if pseudo titles are okay.

That's really the point: Is it okay to use pseudo titles: I don't know, no one really does. Unless you plan to write for a specific newspaper, where you can check their style guide, the answer is to do whatever you want, but keep in mind that pseudo titles might sound more colloquial and American.

Oh, and technically no one did really ever mention in the talk about pseudo-titles words like friend, but @FumbleFingers found at least a few occasions of the word husband without any article or pronoun.

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  • Yes, I might have added that such 'pseudo-titles' are sometimes used in 'headlinese', but headlines don't have to be strictly grammatical.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 20 at 8:33

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