My son was watching one of the cooking shows and it reminded me how people often drop the “the” in front of chef when referring to the chef. For example, someone told a lie to the chef and someone else commented “I can’t believe she would lie right to chef”.
When my kids were in high school sports, it was the same thing – “coach says we have to…”
As far as I can tell, this doesn’t happen with other titles – you wouldn’t say “I can’t believe she lied to general/captain/doctor/nurse…”, you would put “the” in front of it.
I’m just wondering if there’s some linguistic reason behind this, whether it’s regional, and so on.
(I’m also curious about “prom” – when I was in high school, we asked someone “to the prom”, but now it’s “to prom”)
Well, if there is only one chef or coach, the term become more like a name than a title. Its a nice compromise between formal and familiar. When there is only one of something I don’t think the article is needed. Yes, there is more than one coach in the world but not as far as his/her players are concerned.
I have heard nurses refer to the doctor as “doctor” using the title as a surrogate for the name. I don’t think it’s as common as it used to be but it’s not unheard of.
The whole construct seems to apply only to authority figures.
But I agree that it doesn’t quite work in that other construction.
I wonder if this is actually a linguistic holdover from names-as-positions. It wouldn’t be weird to say, “Go talk to Hunter” or “I can’t believe she said that to Smith.”
It’s another odd quirk in our language. Most of us might say, "I am going to school.’, yet seldom say, ‘I am going to hospital.’, much like the British. Using “the” seems superfluous.
I prefer “the” to just calling the coach or chef, coach or chef. It’s a form of respect. My parents called nearly all of our neighbors Mr. or Mrs Such and Such, and not just in front of the children, just as a matter of form and style. Kids in the neighborhood referred to all the parents of the children as Mr. or Mrs. also, no “Dave’s dad” or “Larry’s mom”. I never heard that once when growing up (I’ve often wondered why Regional? Maybe “Northeast” or “New England”. Once in a while some wiseguy dude would use the once familiar “old man” or “old lady” when referring to their fathers and mothers. He was the oldest of five boys, with no sisters.)
Until all the troubles in what’s nowadays universally called Ukraine, I remember reading and hearing of the region called the Ukraine, but not now. Nor have I ever known a Ukrainean who objected to me or anyone (Walter Cronkite, say, on the Evening News) calling it that, THE Ukraine. It the same with what used to called England, in a generic sense, which is now the UK. Sometimes it was referred to Great Britain or just Britain, but those tended to sound stuffy
Enough on this topic for the time being…or is it time being?
Rabbi is another one, as in Rabbi wants to speak with you. I don’t know what to say if there are more than one (not a Minyan I know), as sometimes happens at work.
The use of doctor, boss, pastor, reverend,etc. are just as common as coach and chef in this manner. I believe that the OP just hasn’t had as much exposure to these common usages as well, and also subject to personal experience. This is more of a IMHO question as opposed to a factual question.
I disagree. The term I heard that set off this whole thread was “I can’t believe you lied to chef”, which seems like a normal thing to say, with chef or coach. I would never say, “I can’t believe you lied to boss”, and pastor and reverend seem equally awkward.
I’m fine with moving it to IMHO at this point. I was looking for a factual answer originally, but maybe there isn’t one.
FWIW, my theory is that using a title without a definite article is a shorthand for using the title with a name, but eliding the name if it’s assumed to be understood by both speaker and listener(s).