Unnecessary pronouns: "The President he issued..."

Is it now considered acceptable to follow a proper noun ... or any noun ... with a pronoun? E.g.

The President he issued a new executive order.


Is it now considered acceptable to follow a proper noun ... or any noun ... with a pronoun? E.g.

  • The President he issued a new executive order.

Yes, it is grammatical, and has been for a long, long time. Though, you're missing a comma:

  • The president, he issued a new executive order.

Then the sentence would be in the form of a left-dislocation construction. Dislocation constructions (left and right) are part of today's standard English, and they are commonly found in informal styles and registers.

The extra noun phrase (e.g. "the president") serves as antecedent for a personal pronoun (e.g. "he"). Usually, the detached noun phrase is a rather heavy or complex expression, e.g.

  • One of my cousins, she has triplets.

  • The man next door, I think his car was stolen.

  • This guy in my class, I gave him my notes to copy and he never returned them.

but it doesn't have to be, e.g.

  • Garlic, I eat it and pretty soon my stomach's upset.

For info, there's the 2005 textbook by Huddleston and Pullum, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar, section "Dislocation", page 255. Also there's the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, section "Dislocation", pages 1408-14.


AmE here.

I think the issue here is not one of acceptability, it's one of why it's done.

Clearly it's not "correct grammatically", as it is redundant, but you mention that you hear it. It would rarely make it into print unless it was a quote or a transcription. You would probably have a very hard time finding it even in very informal writting (such as blogs). It's like a filler word, just a thoughtlessness in speech, akin to uh. If I had to transcribe it, it would be

The President , he issued... or, The President... he issued...

It is said, I hear it as well, but it's discussion. If you ever read transcripts of depositions (which is pertinent because legally, every utterance, even a cough, must be transcribed), you will see the most egregious violations of grammaticality you can imagine, as well as stupid mistakes, because we aren't taking the time to formulate well developed sentences. It's just how some people speak, even on television.