Should the article "the" be used twice with a proper noun starting with "the"? [duplicate]

Solution 1:

I provided a long answer to the question "Capitalisation in texts where the title is also a concept that is referred to within the text?" a while ago.

Part of my answer to that question is directly relevant to this one.

In the following quotation, The Boss is a nickname commonly used for the singer Bruce Springsteen.

Sometimes what sounds natural can supersede what is technically correct from a syntactical point of view.

For example:

✔ Those are the Gucci shoes I was talking about.

Here, we have a proper noun acting to modify a common noun.

But while the next sentence follows the same syntactical rule, it doesn't look right:

？ That is the The Boss ticket I was talking about.

Even though the second article is not actually an article per se (it's part of a name), it's not possible to look at the duplication and think it's appropriate. If something is technically correct, but is still incredibly awkward, it's better to rephrase it.

In this case, we could omit one or the other word (knowing the meaning would be understood anyway) or we could actually restructure the sentence so it's not awkward to start with:

✔ That is the ticket to The Boss I was talking about.
✔ That is the The Boss ticket I was talking about.
✔ That is the The Boss ticket I was talking about.

In the last two sentences, we know perfectly well which words should be capitalized—it's just that we're choosing to omit one or the other for the sake of comprehension. (And which we omit would be a matter of style or personal choice.)

Solution 2:

In speech, you'll never add an extra article and might even elide the one in the proper name. "Where's the Who CD?" and even "Where's that Who CD?", "Where's my Who CD?".

In writing, with quotes (or bold or italic) to indicate that the second article is part of a title, you might. It looks rather odd. Nobody will complain if you don't, unless it creates ambiguity (and I cannot think of an example of that -- any takers?). You might re-phrase to avoid awkwardness. "The performance by The Who ...", not "The The Who performance ..." or "The Who performance ...".

Now, somebody is doubtless going to refer me to a lawsuit between two rock bands that were once one rock band, now known as "What?" and "The What" ... lawyers have to be very careful what they write ....