word choice - "become a President" or "become President"

If he had not been a film star, he would not have become President.

In my opinion, "a President" is correct. Examples:

"My dream is to be a teacher"
"My dream is to be a President"

Which is correct usage? President or a President?

Answer

If you are referring to the President of the United States (or of any country, for that matter), you have to bear in mind that there is only one of them at a time. Therefore 'President', without the indefinite article, is sufficient to describe him (or one day, her): it is an official title as well as a descriptive term.

If someone says "I want to become a president" or "My dream is to be a president", the implication is that they don't care which country they become president of.

Comments

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

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A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

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