An example (from The New Yorker) of a phrase with a false title (psychologist John Hayes):
After Simon and Chase’s paper, for example, the psychologist John Hayes looked at seventy-six famous classical composers and found that, in almost every case, those composers did not create their greatest work until they had been composing for at least ten years.
Both THE and the zero article could be used with false titles, but which looks better in this sentence to a native speaker? Would this look OK:
After Simon and Chase’s paper, for example, _ psychologist John Hayes looked at seventy-six famous classical composers and found that, in almost every case, those composers did not create their greatest work until they had been composing for at least ten years.
What if we beefed up the phrase with an adjunct? Would 0 and THE both look fine?
After Simon and Chase’s paper, for example, (Ø/the) cognitive psychologist John Hayes looked at seventy-six famous classical composers and found that, in almost every case, those composers did not create their greatest work until they had been composing for at least ten years.
After Simon and Chase’s paper, for example, (Ø/the) American cognitive psychologist John Hayes looked at seventy-six famous classical composers and found that, in almost every case, those composers did not create their greatest work until they had been composing for at least ten years.
It seems that THE looks O.K. when a false title is short ("psychologist") but starts looking strange before some complex combinations.
Ø
for technical reasons, though it's more properly∅
). It's not usually written with the numeral0
, which often shows up (as in your question) without the diagonal line through the circle. This is confusing to me, so I've been editing your questions. The other convention is this: when you list two choices with a slash meaning "or", it's most often a forward slash (/
), not a backslash. I'm commenting here so you can edit it yourself, if you'd like; or not, if you'd rather not. – snailplane♦ Aug 23 '13 at 11:44