My favourite novel is entitled / titled “Alice in Wonderland”.
- Is “entitled” usually used by the Americans, while “titled” is more commonly used by the British?
- Is it correct to use quotation marks for the title of a novel?
Thanks.
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Could somebody please help? Thanks.
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Hi @Andrea, @Alan, @Anglophile, @RyanBell can anyone of you please help? Many thanks in advance.
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I would simply say ‘called’ or just say the title of the book. No need for inverted commas.
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Hi Alan, thanks a lot for your quick response. 
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I agree with Alan. 
entitled and titled have different meanings as well.
entitled - a person has rights to something
titled - something received a title either by the author or someone else
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Hello Andrea, thank you very much for taking the time to answer this question on a Sunday too. 
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Many thanks, Alan.
The title doesn’t require inverted commas. If no inverted commas are inserted, should the title be italicised?
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Many thanks, Andrea.
If I am not wrong, in British English, “entitled” also refers to the title given to a book, novel, etc.
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Hello Kohyoongliat. Thanks for your message.
Yes, you have a good point there. However, I think it really depends how you use the word “entitled” in the sentence. I think the suggestion from Alan is more common to use.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary it has the following:
- to give a title to a book, movie etc
- Her latest novel, entitled “The Forgotten Child,” is arriving in bookstores this week.
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The word entitled is usually used by non-native speakers, especially Asians, and it has a different meaning as explained by Andrea. So, titled is correct.
As regards the inverted commas I would say I agree with Alan. But please note that the title of a book is usually written in a specific way with each CONTENT word beginning with a capital as in Alice in Wonderland.
CONTENT words include nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Others (prepositions, conjunctions and interjections) are STRUCTURE words (including articles). Unless you start with them, you need to put them in small letters.
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Italics are not necessary and the use of ‘entitled’ Is used as you say.
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But, Andrea, when I used it on this forum long ago, it was frowned upon and dismissed by one of the then moderators. Since then I have not used it.
So, does the alternate meaning ‘to give a title’ seem to be acceptable?
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You will often hear ‘titled’ and ‘entitled’ used interchangeably; however, the distinction between the two is worth preserving:
‘The album is titled “The Best of Alice in Chains”.’
‘Alice in Chains is entitled to more of the proceeds.’
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