Example: Hugh Jim Bissell is giving a talk entitled, “What’s Wrong with This Sentence?”

You’ve read sentences like this a million times, but “entitled” is the wrong word choice.

Most often, “entitled” means one has a right or claim to something. As in, “Americans are entitled to free (albeit grammatically warped) speech.”

And yes, “entitle” can mean to give a title to something, but does not refer to the title itself. As in, “The esteemed Mr. Bissell entitled his talk after he wrote it. It’s titled, ‘What’s Wrong with This Sentence?'”

Or entitle can mean to confer a title on a person. As in, “The queen entitled Sir Loin of Beef at a state dinner.”

In other words, do not use “entitled” before the name of a book, lecture, article, diary entry, speech, poem, rodeo, etc.

If you must, use “titled.”

So our original example should be corrected to: Hugh Jim Bissell is giving a talk titled, “What’s Wrong with This Sentence?”

Better yet, avoid the extra wordiness: Hugh Jim Bissell is giving a talk, “What’s Wrong with This Sentence?”

Kevin Leigh Smith, [email protected]

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http://agriculture.purdue.edu/agcomm/ontarget/0506/GrammarTraptitledvs.entitled.htm

The other minor but potentially desirable aspect of “entitled” is that it actually alludes to the act of entitling, which some people may in fact prefer. One might argue this places a marginally greater emphasis on the title, as a result (rather than the more disassociated, stand-alone alternative of “titled”).

My question about both terms is: Is it ever an acceptable alternative to include a COMMA after the term? Or is it only ever correct to omit the comma? A very quick look at the internet didn’t provide me with a definitive answer.

e.g., “… a book entitled ‘The Last Revolution'” vs. “… a book entitled, ‘The Last Revolution'”

TMS: I would say a comma wouldn’t be used before the title of the book. I said “entitled” my whole life until I used it immediately before I wrote this post, and someone questioned it. I agree with you – either way is fine.

I understand what you are reading the definition as, what I’m reading it as: To entitle = to name; titled = already named.

It’s your fight, so you can win simply by going with your reading, I’m just pointing out what someone who has no bearing on the discussion thinks.

The definitions are fuzzy at best, so the argument could go either way, and I do like to argue heh

From what I can discern from the definitions, I could have used “titled” or “entitled” in the given example, and both would have been correct.  I get the feeling, though, that hard-core word nazis feel that “titled” is THE correct word in that context.