Why the colon rule?

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I'm reading Bait and Switch at the moment.
Except I'm not really, I'm reading Bait and Switch : The something something explanatory subtitle somthing. Is it possible for non-fiction to be published in the US today without having that incrediby irritating Catchy title: Obvious explanation structure? Can we make it stop?

― Ray, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:23 (eighteen years ago)

I know, I know, I abstract these book reviews all the time and I wonder exactly the same thing. And sometimes it is as simple as Poverty: its causes and solutions (or similar), which could have been written as The Causes and Solutions of Poverty, and they could still have put Poverty in big letters so it would be the first thing you saw.

Annoying.

― accentmonkey, Monday, 26 February 2007 23:23 (eighteen years ago)

We had a thread about this already, but I'm not in the mood to google.

I dunno, right at this moment I'm kinda fond of the habit. Perhaps because I just handed in a paper with a "Horrible pun: Longwinded explanation of pun" title. Which I usually avoid, but someone kinda dared me to go with the pun.

― Casuistry, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 00:40 (eighteen years ago)

I don't have a problem with it.

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 00:42 (eighteen years ago)

what was the pun?

― and what, Thursday, 1 March 2007 18:20 (eighteen years ago)

casuistry get your pun

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 1 March 2007 18:48 (eighteen years ago)

why the solon rule?

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 1 March 2007 19:08 (eighteen years ago)

or: how the wisdom of the ancient greeks can help us solve life's little dilemmas of today

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 1 March 2007 19:11 (eighteen years ago)

Oh it was a paper on the reemergence of the medieval city, and I was -- it's a terrible paper, really -- but I was suggesting there were two main urban models from classical europe, Greek independent city-states and Roman empire with cities under a central authority (but with pax romana etc), and that medieval cities were struggling to find a balance between these ideas. So the paper was called "Greco-Roman Wrestling: Struggles between models of urban..." etc.

― Casuistry, Thursday, 1 March 2007 19:18 (eighteen years ago)

Catchy Title: Descriptive and Expressive Sub-Title to Lure the Reader Even Closer to Purchasing the Book.

― Skrik, Friday, 2 March 2007 18:57 (eighteen years ago)

I'd think the practical edge here is obvious -- you have a thematic title like anyone else, but as your book is non-fiction, people kinda need direct notice of its subject and scope. (Funnily enough the colon part is kind of a behind-the-curtain thing and doesn't really interact with the reader: the covers of these books don't have to use it, obviously, so they just look like books with titles that happen to have a handy descriptive line below.) Also it's better than previous usages, like "Obvious Title, or More Poetic Title."

Hahaha as the modern world becomes ever more inundated with texts and entertainments to sort through, we may need to do the same to works of fiction, to allow for easier filtering:

The Great Gatsby: Death and Devotion in Jazz-Age Long Island
Rabbit is Rich: Repression and Anomie in the Middle-Class American Suburb
etc.

― nabisco, Friday, 2 March 2007 21:12 (eighteen years ago)

Florid Title: A novel.

― Casuistry, Friday, 2 March 2007 22:46 (eighteen years ago)

abstracted phrase: and a more helpful explanation of its significance.

― remy bean, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 18:43 (eighteen years ago)

that's what back covers are for, or reviews, or the contextual information supplied by shelving, or all of the other kinds of information that are supplied along with the name of the book. The times when "Bait and Switch" will appear context-free, and the only available explanation of the title is a subtitle, are very, very rare.

― Ray, Thursday, 8 March 2007 10:24 (eighteen years ago)

Given what Ray just said, I wonder if it's to do with the rise of online book-buying, since much of that stuff ("back covers ... or reviews, or the contextual information supplied by shelving") is not there on many book sites, plus relevant words in a subtitle help turn up your book when someone does a keyword search on Amazon or whatever - or, indeed, when the staff in a physical-world bookshop do a customer search on BookSCan or whatever it's called.

― James Morrison, Thursday, 8 March 2007 23:05 (eighteen years ago)

I was talking to a friend who's studying biology, and apparently the articles he reads tend to have the pun after the colon rather than before it? so it's biological concept: something something and stupid pun rather than stupid pun: longwinded explanation. Perhaps we've finally isolated is the difference between the arts and the sciences, I thought.

― c sharp major, Sunday, 11 March 2007 19:52 (eighteen years ago)

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