Entitled or Titled?

On Monday I led seminars for the communications group of a huge company. When I asked this sophisticated audience to find errors in sentences, they identified an error I did not intend. Here is the sentence:

She was quoting from a white paper entitled "Avoiding Antitrust Violations".

In the United States, the error is the period outside the closing quotation marks. It belongs inside in the U.S. However, these workshop participants pointed out entitled. In their journalism classes they had learned that titled is correct. Are they right?

Yes. Titled is correct to refer to the title of a work. But some style manuals assert that entitled is also correct.

In Common Errors in English Usage Paul Brians points out that the English author Chaucer used entitled as I did above. Brians says it may be pretentious but not wrong.

The Gregg Reference Manual says it is now "generally acceptable" to use entitled as I did. 

The Associated Press Stylebook (AP) says I'm wrong: Only titled is correct for the title of a work.

The Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications agrees with AP in saying my usage is wrong.

Garner's Modern American Usage says my usage is fine when used as a past participle, that is "The book is entitled . . . " But Garner frowns on this usage: "What are you going to entitle your article?" He prefers title in such a sentence.

The Chicago Manual of Style does not appear to address the question--at least I couldn't find entitle/title in its index.

As for me, I am going to change my ways. If a knowledgeable group of corporate communicators all view entitle as wrong, I am going to move to their side. Starting today, I will use entitle only when I mean "have the right," as in "You are entitled to a 10 percent discount" or "You are entitled to one parking space."

I have used the word entitled in many written pieces. To eliminate it, I will search my computer for documents that include the word, then use the Find and Replace function for each document. Once I have revised my documents, I just hope I can get my brain to make the change as easily.

Lynn

Comments

[Robin Yim]

My OED contains, as one of the definition of entitle, the meaning of giving something a particular name.

I don't think this is an error, myself. But, then, who am I?

Robin

[Lynn]

Hi, Robin. I agree with you that the use of "entitle" as we discussed is not an error. But I have decided to use the word "titled" since all reference books apparently view it as correct.

Thanks for sharing your library!

Lynn

[John]

I actually agree with the business folks.

I often explain to my students that we might be entitled to something but inanimate objects are not.

Thus, I title a book; it's not entitled to anything.

[Lynn]

John, I like your explanation! Thanks for sharing it.

Lynn

[Ron Webb]

Thanks for your advice on this, Lynn! I was editing a document written by someone else, and was about to change his word "titled" to "entitled", but your observation regarding common usage has dissuaded me.

However, I would like to offer a brief defense of "entitled" in the sense of "given the title of", even though I recognize that it is a lost cause.

The prefix "en-" is commonly used in many other words (e.g. "enthrone", "enshrine", "entrap") meaning "to make", "to cause to be", to put into", etc. It seems to me that "entitle" is in good company.

I also think there is an important distinction between its usage as conferring rights versus giving a title. In the former sense it seems to me that the verb is used intransitively, whereas the latter is transitive. (I can't find a single dictionary that agrees with me about this, but I'm sticking to my guns!)

For example: in the sentence "The book is entitled 'War and Peace'," the object of the verb is "'War and Peace'". In contrast, the sentence "The book is entitled to be considered a classic," I don't see any clear object.

On the other hand, English loves to use nouns as verbs. We don't "encolour" something, we just colour it. So I guess I can get used to titling a book rather than entitling it.

[Lynn]

Hi, Ron. Thanks for your detailed, gutsy views on the subject.

I am having a tough time dropping "entitled" in the published sense from my vocabulary. I guess I spent too many years writing "The book is entitled." However, I keep reminding myself, and I am sure I will break the habit soon.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Lynn