Adding Span to Title

for just the page title, edit page.php and replace the_title(); with:

$words = explode(' ', the_title('', '',  false));
$words[0] = '<span>'.$words[0].'</span>';
$title = implode(' ', $words);
echo $title;

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or for generally all titles (this will add the span around the first word in any title, such as post titles, page titles, and the_title is also used for instance in page lists) –
add something like this to functions.php of your theme:

add_filter('the_title', 'span_first_word');
function span_first_word($title) {
$words = explode(' ', $title);
$words[0] = '<span>'.$words[0].'</span>';
$title = implode(' ', $words);
return $title;
}

Any way on how to target all instances of ‘the’ within a the_title();?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, Thanks!