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There is a position in a company, "Director and Vice President". If two people are in this position, are they:

Director and Vice Presidents

or

Directors and Vice Presidents?

Justin
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Steven Brown
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  • I would go for the second. The first could sound as if you had made the title one word as in Directorandvicepresidents – Henry Mar 17 '22 at 09:08
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    This title is so rare a wording that it merits special handling. << Jesus is prophet, priest, and king >> shows three offices, not a single three-part office (though doubtless hours are spent debating this). Many people have admittedly encountered << Master and Commander >>; most probably think it's two designations. << 2 Directors and Vice Presidents >> is famously ambiguous and should be avoided anyway. << 2 Director and Vice Presidents >> might well be taken for a mistake by the common man, for whose benefit I'd use << two people each holding the position Director and Vice President >> – Edwin Ashworth Mar 17 '22 at 10:38
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    I will go with your suggestion Edwin << two people each holding the position Director and Vice President >>. Thank you to everyone! – Steven Brown Mar 17 '22 at 11:41
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    How can two people be in the same position? Do they take turns? Do they have identical powers, or do they have different responsibilities? If the latter, then they're not in the same position, and they wouldn't have the same title. – John Lawler Mar 18 '22 at 13:58
  • One-offs are unlikely to have set rules. Many VPs work in the role of Director: Pat Sprat, VP, Director of Technology. They are not Director and VP. – Yosef Baskin Mar 22 '22 at 22:53
  • Just a suggestion- why not consider Director-cum-Vice Presidents ? – R.S. Apr 16 '22 at 17:14
  • Vice-president is a position on a board of directors. And director can be too. As in Executive Directors. So: VP and Director of Marketing, in a company. It would not have two of them! – Lambie Apr 17 '22 at 15:42
  • This question is about the plural/singular within the title, in the situations in which more than one person holds the title; it is not a duplicate of the question about the plural/singular of the verb that is used with such a title in the situations in which it is held by one person. The answers to the other question do not in any obvious way entail the answer to this one. – jsw29 Apr 18 '22 at 15:42

3 Answers3

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There is no simple way to convey the idea that there are two people who both hold this position, unless the audience is already familiar with the institution in question and its awkward internal terminology. One should blame the bureaucrats who invented this title for the problem that it creates.

If one writes

two Director and Vice Presidents

that will be 'seen' by most people as a typo (even if it is correct according to the terminology used within the institution). If one instead writes

two Directors and Vice Presidents

it will be unclear how many people in total are referred to, and what their titles are; the interpretation that these are two people holding the same four-word title is probably the least likely to occur to an average person.

The only way to avoid the ambiguity when communicating with an audience that is not already familiar with the title is to hyphenate it, notwithstanding the fact that it is not hyphenated in the institution's internal documents:

two Director-and-Vice-Presidents.

If one is willing to risk incurring the wrath of the bureaucrats who care about the full title, one can probably just say

two Directors

or

two Vice Presidents

as it is unlikely that both parts of the title will be essential to what one is trying to communicate.

jsw29
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In my view there is a slight difference in meaning, in that there can be an ambiguity in the second case:

  1. We have three Director and Vice Presidents.

This is obvious as a single job title, unless you assume a mistake by the speaker

  1. We have three Directors and Vice Presidents.

This could either mean there are three people who are both Directors and Vice President, but there could also be three people who are Director and three other people who are Vice President.

In the latter case one could avoid ambiguity by stating

  1. We have three Directors and three Vice Presidents.

In order to be fully clear, one could say

  1. We have three people who are Director and Vice President.

So while both of your sentences work, the second variant leaves a bit more room for ambiguity.

Oliver Mason
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    4 is not exactly 'fully clear', as somebody could interpret it to mean that there is one collective 'Director and Vice President', composed of three people. – jsw29 Apr 17 '22 at 15:48
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I think you’d just say they’re both in a position of “Director and Vice President”. Like David and Josh are both in the position of “Director and Vice President”

Zimo Tang WV
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