# Clever, Provacative Title: And a Long, Cumbersome Subtitle Explaining the Theme **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 7, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981 "2007-03-07T19:01:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/1 "2007-03-07T19:01:18Z")
…as Explicitly as Possible Any chance of this annoying, intelligence-insulting fad for non-fiction books subsiding soon? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/2 "2007-03-07T19:07:23Z")
What, reading non-fiction books is intelligence-insulting? Surely you can’t mean _that_. The last book I read (last weekend) was non-fiction. Fascinating and funny, it was. (**Ron Jeremy: The Hardest (Working) Man In Show Business**). (Speaking of explicit. 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/3 "2007-03-07T19:11:05Z")
I’mnot sure whatyou are taling about. By the way have you seen **Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan** or as it is discussed in Cafe Society (B:CLoAfMBGNoK). ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/4 "2007-03-07T19:20:26Z")
I think the OP means things like _Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking_ and _Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed_. I don’t find it annoying until I have to put the book into a bibliography. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/5 "2007-03-07T19:22:04Z")
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus] I’mnot sure whatyou are taling about. By the way have you seen **Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan** or as it is discussed in Cafe Society (B:CLoAfMBGNoK). [/QUOTE] Yeah, I see it’s creeping into films (both _Anchorman_ and _Talladega Nights_ seemed odd for using that convention). And what do you mean you don’t know what I’m talking about - come on, this fad is basically a rule these days. Look at this [hourly updated list](http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/53/ref=pd_ts_c_th_head/102-6100934-7396146) of bestselling non-fiction books on Amazon. EDIT: I see **garygnu** has already helped me out. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/6 "2007-03-07T22:25:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Clever, Provacative Title: And a Long, Cumbersome Subtitle Explaining the Theme > > * * * > > …as Explicitly as Possible > > Any chance of this annoying, intelligence-insulting fad for non-fiction books subsiding soon? Yeah, it really pisses me off when someone uses a title like: **Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon** Do they think we’re so stupid we don’t know who Medusa is, or what? ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/7 "2007-03-07T22:40:11Z")
Wow, that Amazon list is downright creepy. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/8 "2007-03-07T22:47:07Z")
I enjoyed reading two recent non-fiction books with this type of title– \*\* Inside Out: How Corporate America Destroyed Professional Wrestling\*\*–by Ole Anderson and Scott Teal and **The Cowboy and the Cross: The Bill Watts Story** by Bill Watts and Scott Williams. But…nobody in the niche audience ever calls the books by the actual title (which I may have misquoted–at work now, and my copies are at home). It’s usually called Ole’s book, or Watts’s book. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/9 "2007-03-07T22:53:32Z")
This thread cannot go by without mentioning the famous: **A Hand in the Bush: the Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting** ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/10 "2007-03-07T22:57:27Z")
This is by no means a new phenomenon. I can’t think of examples off the top of my head right now, but a lot of non-fiction (and some fiction) books dating back to the 19th century and possibly earlier were like this ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/11 "2007-03-07T23:10:04Z")
Academic Colonitis ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/12 "2007-03-07T23:23:47Z")
**Academic Colonitis: the Propensity of the Educated to Spill Their Guts** ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/13 "2007-03-07T23:27:37Z")
BTW, from observation, I think it comes the other way round. The cumbersome title is the actual title, then the author comes up with a clever pun to describe it; but they are obliged to include the ponderous one as well. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/14 "2007-03-07T23:54:08Z")
Isn’t this actually a return to a more Romantic tradition? [Clarissa, or the History of a Young Woman](http://www.amazon.com/Clarissa-History-Young-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140432159/ref=pd_sim_b_2/102-8939972-1890546?ie=UTF8&qid=1173310881&sr=8-12) [The Hobbit, or There and Back Again](http://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618260307/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8939972-1890546?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173310989&sr=8-1) [Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded](http://www.amazon.com/Pamela-Virtue-Rewarded-Oxford-Classics/dp/0192829602/ref=pd_sim_b_1/102-8939972-1890546?ie=UTF8&qid=1173310881&sr=8-12) I seem to recall that Tom Jones, The Turn of the Screw, and other well known classics have subtitles that are more descriptive, too. On edit: I see **Fat Bald Guy** made this point already. ---
**Author:** ![ryobserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@ryobserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryobserver)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clever-provacative-title-and-a-long-cumbersome-subtitle-explaining-the-theme/394981/15 "2007-03-07T23:56:06Z")
This is ubiquitous in academic publishing, especially in the social sciences. The short title is as attention-grabbing as possible, sometimes almost tabloidish, and the subtitle deflates any expectations aroused by the main title. My favorite example is **Manslaughter, Fornication and Sectarianism: Norm-Breaking in Finland and the Baltic Areas From Medieval to Modern Times**. It’s not the most lurid main title I’ve seen, but I like it; I just wish I could make it scan to “My Favorite Things”.