The [job-noun] [person-noun]

HareBrain

HareBrain

Ziggy Wigwag
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The only examples I can think of are in film titles: The Outlaw Josey Wales, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. But I keep wanting to use it in my writing, such as "the magician Daroguerre". Is it widespread enough to not risk seeming really strange, even though I can only think of two examples? Is it old-fashioned? Does it only belong in the American West?
 
It does feel a bit odd and I keep wanting to add commas there -- ie "the magician, Daroguerre, said" -- but if it's only used once or twice I can't see it causing any disruption. More than that it's going to seem repetitive as well as odd.
 
Harpo said:
More examples:
Queen Elizabeth, Postman Pat, Nurse Gladys Emmannuel, Inspector Morse, etc.
Click to expand...

Those are missing the "the". You wouldn't say "the postman Pat", "the inspector Morse", etc.

Since posting, I've spoken to a friend who reminded me that this is used quite a lot in the context of printed news reports of celebrities -- "the restaurant critic Michael Winner", etc. That's probably where I picked it up from.
 
HareBrain said:
The only examples I can think of are in film titles: The Outlaw Josey Wales, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. But I keep wanting to use it in my writing, such as "the magician Daroguerre". Is it widespread enough to not risk seeming really strange, even though I can only think of two examples? Is it old-fashioned? Does it only belong in the American West?
Click to expand...

In your examples, both The Outlaw Josey Wales and The Assassination of Jesses James by the Coward Robert Ford are titles. They are therefore capitalized. But if you were writing a story and someone said something like, "We're going after the outlaw Josey Wales," you would not capitalized outlaw.

Only capitalize proper nouns. Is "magician" a proper noun in your world?

But as a matter of general advice (not formal grammar), I would avoid using "the magician Daroguerre" too often, especially if he or she is a main character. If he or she is a main character, just use the name. If not, then "the magician." But using both is over-describing.
 
What Marks said. I think it makes sense and looks punctuated correctly to me, but don't use it too much as a descriptor.
 
This shows up in my Gregg Reference Manual::
Section 312
And seems to agree that you would not capitalize their profession.
the outlaw Josey Wales (when not in the title) works.
Since I'd not think of coward as a professional title I'm unsure how to handle that one.
 
Thanks all, but capitalisation isn't what I was asking about. I answered my own question in post #5.
 
HareBrain said:
Those are missing the "the". You wouldn't say "the postman Pat", "the inspector Morse", etc.

Since posting, I've spoken to a friend who reminded me that this is used quite a lot in the context of printed news reports of celebrities -- "the restaurant critic Michael Winner", etc. That's probably where I picked it up from.
Click to expand...

This made me think that there must be books with such titles, I was sure of it. Yet I couldn't find any. The closest that I could find were Jack Vance's Rhialto the Marvellous (or at least this one wanted to make itself known as a potential candidate in my mind!) then, The Talented Mr Ripley, The Great Gatsby (?), The Brothers Karamazov (??), Thomas the Rhymer (one could rearrange that to 'The Rhymer Thomas' no? :rolleyes:) but none of them have a job title in the Title of course, unless rhyming is a paid profession :p

There are, of course, a lot of books with titles such as 'The Magician's Nephew/boy/Twin/Wife/etc...' which is perhaps the reason I was sure there must be book titles that follow your original post, but they are more generalisations rather than specifics.
 
I couldn't think of any either. I sometimes found myself on the edge of thinking of one, but I'm pretty sure it was just The Outlaw Josey Wales prodding me again.

But I think you have found one: The Brothers Karamazov. It doesn't have to be a job as such (obviously, as "coward" isn't one), just a noun descriptor.
 
There's a recent fantasy novel called The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson.
 
It seems that most of the usage we've found is in a negative connotation. Outlaw, coward and traitor. And really, Daroguerre could be considered all three, so magician in his case isn't far off the mark.
 
That's a strange one. The text refers to "the Widow Susan", but the capital W in Widow suggests it isn't being used just as a "job" term, but that "Widow Susan" is a compound name (or whatever the technical term is), like "Great Old One".
 
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