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A matter of style


just found something in the Guardian's style guide that had never before occurred to me.

The entry on the use of the names of people quoted refers to the situation in which it is thought necessary, in a news report, to introduce someone to ones readers with a description beyond the name.

In a story about a football [soccer!] game, one might write, "Paul Heckingbottom, the Sheffield United manager, said...." 

Why the commas, though? Here is the interesting bit. Why not just "Paul Heckingbottom the Sheffield United manager said..."? 

TIL that commas around the name indicate that there is only one person with this function. If the team were managed by committee, and each member of the committee had the title "manager," then one might well write "Paul Heckingbottom the Sheffield United manager said...."

More plausibly, and shifting to political coverage, "The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said" is proper. But there are a lot of former Labour leaders knocking about, so one would say, "the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock said...."

Good to know.

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  1. HenryJuly 20, 2023 at 2:49 AM

    This is a matter of convention. I believe that the convention is, "Paul Heckingbottom, the Sheffield United manager, said..." and "Sheffield United Manager Paul Heckingbottom said..." I've never seen that one drops the commas if more than one person has the function. In that case, it would be accurate to say, "Paul Heckingbottom, a Sheffield United manager, said..."

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