My experience with the M-W is that they tend to try to describe the way the language is spoken, rather than to try to prescribe how the language should be spoken. So they straightforwardly accept a lot of things that other dictionaries, as well as many careful speakers, would consider substandard.

Bill(n), the answer to your question can be found in this thread:

http://www.potters.org/subject47443.htm

That's true, goossun. I didn't elaborate (it seemed a bit off-topic), but "Poet Rainer Maria Rilke" uses "poet" as an adjective, sort of like a title. So would "the poet Rilke," in a way. If you deleted the name of the poet from the sentence in either case, the sentence would not make any sense (i.e. "Poet wrote the Duino Elegies.").

"The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke,..." introduces the name of the poet as a parenthetical expression. The sentence would be complete even if I had not added the poet's name ("The poet wrote the Duino Elegies in German.").

Brad, if you were really as smart as you hope we think you are, you'd know who Robert Cawdrey was.

LOL. I think Steph just meant, "There were no standard spelling rules in English before the time during which Webster wrote his famous dictionary."

Strictly speaking, there are still no "rules" for correct spelling. There are only customary, best-accepted spellings that are agreed upon by a majority of users of English (especially writers and teachers and compilers of dictionaries). The only penalty you pay for violating the conventions is looking gauche--and, in rare cases, appearing to say something you did not intend.

Copy Dog:

I honestly had not even noticed the phenomenon until this very minute, when I read your post. I tried saying some similar phrases to myself, but I don't have any preference for one way or the other. They sound equally correct to me.

I think it should be noted that you need to be a bit careful with nouns used as adjectives. The following examples are all correct:

"The poet wrote elegies."
"Poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote the Duino Elegies."
"The poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the composer Frederic Chopin both wrote beautiful elegies."
"In this essay about Romantic elegies, I am going to use as examples the works of a famous poet and a familiar composer. The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote the Duino Elegies in German. The composer, Frederic Chopin, took as his inspiration a Polish folk song form called the 'dumka' (elegy)."

No, Chiara, "useful" and "unit," like "university" and "Europe" and all similar words, begin with a consonant sound, so they take "a" rather than "an."

Hello, Frank. One of two things is happening here:

1) The writer does not pronounce the H in those words.

2) The writer is being "hypercorrect." What I mean is that the writer actually thinks that there is a rule that you should use "an" before words that are spelled with an H. There is no such rule.

The rule is simply that YOU use "an" before words that YOU pronounce with a beginning vowel sound, and "a" for words that YOU pronounce with a beginning consonant sound, regardless of the actual spelling of the word.

It may actually be the only hard-and-fast rule in the language. :)

Ladylucy, the comment in question was intended as general helpful advice to the readership, not as a personal offense tactic directed at you.

Which doesn't at all change the fact that Olga's quoted sentence is as stupid and mechanical as a bag of loose car parts.