Special roles

Some nouns can refer to a special, unique role held by a person in a particular situation (for example, a government or business). When they are used like this, you can leave out the definite article

. ...when he was elected President.

It was nearly 40 years before she became Queen.

...Mr John Hume, leader of the Social and Democratic Labour Party.

It would be unnatural to leave in the definite article and say 'when he was the President' or 'she became the Queen', although you can leave it in when the noun is followed by 'of'. Some words commonly used in this way are: author, chairman, king, queen, best man, chairperson, leader, secretary, boss, director, manager, treasurer, captain, goalkeeper, president, centre forward, head, prime minister.

The context is very important. In a gang, one person can be 'leader'; in a football team, one person can be 'captain', 'centre forward', or 'goalkeeper'; at a wedding one person can be 'best man'; in a country one person can be 'king', 'queen', 'president', or 'prime minister'. Many other nouns can be used in this way in a particular context.

Note that when you are talking about a person rather than describing someone's role you need an article.

The President had issued a sympathetic reply.

The Queen then abandoned the project.

Grammatical terms

The words that linguists use to describe certain words or constructions in English often have the definite article. We talk about 'the past participle', 'the present tense', 'the active voice', or nouns which are 'in the singular'.

In clauses like these you use a verb which is in the present tense.

With most verbs which end in 'e' the present participle is formed by substituting ‘ing’ or the final 'e'.

With these terms you can use the indefinite article if you want to describe one particular instance: 'Singing is a present participle'. You could also say 'Singing is an example of the present participle' or 'Singing is the present participle of ‘sing’.

The most important cases in this book are of course 'the definite article' and 'the indefinite article'. Here are some examples taken from earlier chapters.

The indefinite article has two forms, both in speech and writing.

However, it is not true to say that all these nouns only occur with the definite article.

You can use the indefinite article if you want to pick out one particular instance, as in 'He used an indefinite article where I would have used a definite article'.

CHAPTER 7: ARTICLES AND PROPER NOUNS