Entertainment desk
< February 18	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 19

En dashes in film titles

I've noticed that the titles of many film articles use an en dash rather than a hyphen (i.e. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1), and I'm wondering why that is. I dug up Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes and found the rule "In article titles, do not use a hyphen (-) as a substitute for an en dash," which makes sense, but I don't see how that's relevant to film titles. In the aforementioned case of Harry Potter, the talk page shows that it was once titled with a hyphen and then moved, per the MOS. I feel like I'm missing something here. Any help? - 24.111.170.22 (talk) 05:22, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We have a comprehensive article dash which includes a description of the en dash and others, what they are, how they are used, which style manuals use which, and so forth. Have a look. Elizium23 (talk) 05:38, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do we pay any attention at all to what film producers/directors use in their promotional material for a film? HiLo48 (talk) 05:47, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

HiLo48, that is a very general question, considering the wide diversity of film fandoms we cover here and therefore the diversity of editors calling the shots there. I am confident that many WP:LAME edit wars and disputes have been waged over hyphenation/dashing/colonologies. I am not sure it is so easy to "pay attention" to what producers or directors do, considering the panoply of ways to transmit promotional material in various languages. But to use the OP's example, I imagine that we are likely to override deliberate hyphens and turn them into endashes because our MOS does override promotional styles of typography, such as all-caps, all-lowercase, studly caps, or symbols in place of letters and numbers. Elizium23 (talk) 05:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In his perennial books on films, Leonard Maltin would use the title as it appears on-screen. For example, although the publicity for the first Superman film often said "Superman: The Movie" its on-screen title was simply Superman. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:26, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One of the most famous examples albeit not involving dashes is Star Trek Into Darkness which went through 4 (not counting the one before it had a title) formally counted WP:RMs Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 1#Requested move (for reals this time), Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 3#Requested move, Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 5#Requested move 2, Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 6#Requested move (again) and a bunch of other discussions along with media attention mostly I think beginning from this XKCD [1] [2] [3] [4] [5], including some non English [6].

I'm sure some will debate whether we care about what the producers and director's do. However as evidenced in those RMs and other discussions e.g. Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 1#Is it Star Trek Into Darkness or Star Trek into Darkness?, Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 2#Into vs into, Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 4 (sic, that whole archive seems to be discussions concerning the title), Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 5#Skydance Productions, Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 6#Concerning Capitalization: Official Website and Publications, Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness/Archive 6#Colon usage: should we use "Star Trek: Into Darkness" or "Star Trek Generations"? (all 3 closed discussions really); it did come up a lot.

More to the point, whether or not we directly care, since we do care what RS do, and for better or worse they do often care about that the promotional material does and follow it, we do indirectly care.

Of course this is hardly unique to films. I mean everyone including us (barring the technical problem which means the title is technically IPhone) calls it an iPhone. Also dash wars in generally are fairly legendary e.g. [7] Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 101#Hyphens and endashs

Nil Einne (talk) 08:18, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:TITLE covers this exactly, and the simple answer is that we obey the MOS even if the marketing materials for the film (or other work) follow different stylistic conventions. Especially relevant is the section titled "Typographic effects", which directly applies here, which basically says "ignore the wacky stylistic stuff that the marketing department uses, and follow our MOS". While dashes are not specifically mentioned, there's no reason to presume that they would be a special exception distinct from the other guidance there. The spirit is clear; follow our local MOS rules on how Wikipedia uses dashes, not how the movie poster does. --Jayron 32 17:04, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dashes are mentioned at MOS:TITLE#Punctuation, which reads in part:

Where subtitle punctuation is unclear (e.g. because the subtitle is given on a separate line on the cover or a poster), use a colon and a space, not a dash, comma, or other punctuation, to separate the title elements. If there are two subtitles, a dash can be used between the second and third elements.

So for example, Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back is correct for Wikipedia. But Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows does not come with two subtitles. If Part 1 is being treated as a subtitle, then it should be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1; and by the way, that's the form the IMDB uses for that one. --69.159.8.46 (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]