Usage of "a" and "the" in titles [closed]
Which one should I use for page title?
- Apple — Tasty Fruit
- Apple — A Tasty Fruit
- Apple — The Tasty Fruit
The article is only about tasty apple.
[Updated after checking with this page. (Thanks, J.R. Have you not shown me the link, I wouldn't have known about it)]
If you want to emphasize that apple is delicious and in a way unique, it would be more appropriate to use the definite article, the.
the
used to indicate that someone or something is the best known or most important of that name or type: he was the hot young piano prospect in jazz.
So I would go with option 4.
Apple - The Tasty Fruit
However, if you are not planning to emphasize too much about apple being a tasty fruit, you should use the indefinite article, a.
Apple - A Tasty Fruit
It would make apple sound less special in terms of being tasty.
When it comes to capitalizing words in titles, I would follow the capitalization rules and not capitalize prepositions, articles and conjunctions unless they are at the start or the end of the title, or they consist of more than four letters. In this case, the noun phrase after the dash plays the role of a subtitle, as suggested by J.R. and Lie Ryan, and therefore the first word has to be capitalized, regardless of whether it is an article.
Note: Some sources may agree on the capitalization of prepositions. But I personally don't.
[Suggestion]
You can consider replacing the dash with a comma.
Apple, the Tasty Fruit
Apple is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, most widely known for being extremely tasty. Apples grow on small, delicious trees. The tree originated in Western Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still pretty delicious today. Apples have been very delicious for thousands of years in Asia and Europe, and were brought to North America by European colonists who are passionate about delicious fruits. In 2010, the fruit's yummy genome was decoded, leading to new understandings of taste in fruit production.
[an extract from a Wikipeida article that has been modified]
Subtitles are usually separated by colons, and subtitles that start with "a", "an", or "the" is usually capitalized (as exemplified on here). Thus, we are left with three choices:
Apple: Tasty Fruit
Apple: A Tasty Fruit
Apple: The Tasty Fruit
Which one you choose depends on what you want to emphasize and on your own "taste" (both linguistic and gustatory). Using the article "a" implies that apple is a tasty fruit, but not necessarily "the" only tasty fruit nor "the" most tasty fruit. That's the reason why I would avoid "Apple: The Tasty Fruit", though you might want to use the article "the" if you want to put an extra emphasis on the tastiness of apples.
The zero articles (i.e., using no articles) are usually used for plurals and mass nouns in normal text. I see no reasons why the rule would be different for titles. Therefore, if using zero articles, it should be "Apple: Tasty Fruits" or "Apples: Tasty Fruits".
In this particular case, I'd choose between either "Apple: A Tasty Fruit" or "Apple: Tasty Fruits".
Of your options, 1, 2 and 4 work as they have consistent capitalisation, however you might be better off using
Apple - a tasty fruit
Or
Apple - the tasty fruit