Q. Regarding professional titles (e.g., “chef”) that appear before a person’s name in running copy, it’s not clear when such titles should be initial capped. In CMOS 8.20, Chicago indicates that “professional titles are capitalized when they immediately precede a personal name and are thus used as part of the name (traditionally replacing the title holder’s first name).” But in 8.31, Chicago writes, “When preceding a name, generic titles that describe a person’s role or occupation—such as philosopher or historian—are normally lowercased.” So my question is, Do you have any guidance for distinguishing between a “professional title” and “generic titles that describe a person’s role or occupation”? It would seem that this is a contradiction in Chicago, but perhaps I’m missing something? Any input on this issue would be greatly appreciated!
A. The difference between a professional title and a job description won’t always be crystal clear. If you’re unsure about a particular term not covered in CMOS, try looking up usage for someone famous and using that as your model.
For example, would you refer to “Chef Julia Child,” with a capital C in Chef, and by extension to “Chef Child”? This n-gram from Google Books suggests that this choice would be an outlier. And it’s not how Child and other professional chefs are referred to in the book Appetite for Life, the authorized biography of Child by Noël Riley Fitch (Anchor Books, 1999). Instead, modeling the usage in that book—which refers, for example, to “the teaching of chef Pierre Mangelotte” (181)—you’d refer to chef Julia Child or to Julia Child, the chef (but never to “Chef Child”).
Still, if you wanted to call a particular character “Chef Smith” in a novel or story, that could work well, assuming that’s how the character would be addressed by others (in the manner of a doctor or a coach; see CMOS 8.37). And there may be some real-life chefs who insist on the same—as well as some books that apply the initial capital. But lowercase for chef seems like the more appropriate choice in most cases.
Words for other types of jobs can be investigated in the same way. If your efforts fail to yield a clear choice, go with lowercase.
[Editor’s update: As one of our readers has pointed out to us, Julia Child may often be referred to as a chef, but she was not a chef in the strictest sense of that term, in which a chef is someone who has run a kitchen in a restaurant or similar organization. Such a professional would include, for example, the chef José Andrés, who is often referred to as Chef José Andrés or Chef Andrés, where “Chef” is considered to be his title. Our advice above should have included this distinction.]