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)

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)