# Miss world vs. World's Mis

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miss-world-vs-worlds-mis/684237>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [March 21, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miss-world-vs-worlds-mis/684237 "2014-03-21T17:43:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Reza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Reza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reza)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miss-world-vs-worlds-mis/684237/1 "2014-03-21T17:43:57Z")

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How would you answer this your student’s question? ( as an EFL learner)

“Why we say Miss World and not World’s Miss, and accordingly why we don’t say Light Street, and we say Street light” ?

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**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miss-world-vs-worlds-mis/684237/2 "2014-03-21T17:55:21Z")

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Adjective before noun, title before noun. Same-same.

Light Street might have a street light on it, though.

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**Author:** ![Reza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Reza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reza)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miss-world-vs-worlds-mis/684237/3 "2014-03-21T18:34:01Z")

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> [@silenus](#):
>
> Adjective before noun, title before noun. Same-same.
> 
> Light Street might have a street light on it, though.

Thanks, and what about “World’s Miss”? [can we say that you’ve answered it when talked about Titles before nouns?], if so, then it’s OK, but the student wants to know why s/he can’t say World’s Miss meaning the same as Miss World?

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**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miss-world-vs-worlds-mis/684237/4 "2014-03-21T18:50:15Z")

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> [@Reza](#):
>
> Thanks, and what about “World’s Miss”? [can we say that you’ve answered it when talked about Titles before nouns?], if so, then it’s OK, but the student wants to know why s/he can’t say World’s Miss meaning the same as Miss World?

Yes: titles before nouns.

Mister Right, not Right’s Mister.  
Captain America, not America’s Captain.  
Doctor Hibbert, not Hibbert’s Doctor.

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**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miss-world-vs-worlds-mis/684237/5 "2014-03-23T02:39:57Z")

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English is generally left-branching for adjectives and adverbs but right-branching for prepositional phrases and other complicated things. A street _light_ is a kind of light, not a kind of street. A road called Light _Street_ is a kind of street. Titles aren’t the most adjective-like of modifiers, but they still go to the left of what they modify. (There’s probably no inherent reason behind that, aside from it’s just the way English does things. In Japanese, which is the textbook example of an exclusively head-last language, honorifics like ‘-san’ follow the noun they modify.)