Talk:Four Past Midnight

Library Policeman

Too much speculation in that section, IMHO. Lots42 01:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Aren't there more links to Pennywise (Ardelia appearing every 30 years, has silver dollar eyes, and turns into a bug-like creature) than there are to Randall Flagg? I mean, I know it's speculation, but can we at least mention that Ardelia has parallels to It?--Exer 505 17:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

More articles

Anyone fancy making some full articles for SWSG, Sun Dog and Library Policeman like the Langoliers has? I've just finished reading SWSG so I could start on that one. ArdClose (talk) 15:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Secret Window, Secret Garden content desync?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Secret_Window%2C_Secret_Garden&diff=467266660&oldid=456012940

Seems like that page got updated without this one; if that edit is to be trusted, the same should be made here. Just passing through, so I don't actually know enough about the novella itself to verify which page is correct, but it seems horribly wrong to have the titles switched between the parent and child articles. Either this page should be updated accordingly, or that page should be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.152.192.38 (talk) 11:21, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Merge

I've suggested a merge from the articles in individual stories in this book as I don't believe the individual stories are notable enough to warrant their own articles. The one exception might be The Langoliers, but that story's main claim to independent notability is a conversion to a television miniseries, and that miniseries already has its own article.

Like this main article, each of the story articles are unreferenced or weakly referenced. There have also pbeen problems with the content diverging between this article and the individual articles. A merge is likely to help these issues.

If nobody has a subsantive reason to not perform this merge, I'll attempt to perform it in a couple weeks. -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:05, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I have performed the merge described above. -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:37, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 3 November 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. No discussion required for a move like this. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 12:59, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

---

Four Past Midnight → Four past Midnight – Although a Stephen King novel, "past" is a four-letter preposition and should be lowercased per MOS:CT and WP:NCCAPS, no matter which casing format sources use. George Ho (talk) 08:15, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 20 November 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:06, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

---

Four Past Midnight → Four past Midnight – The previous RM was closed as "moved" without consensus. Somehow, the action was reverted due to official use of the uppercasing. Now I must re-propose again; this time I hope involved parties do not do this again. Again, "past" is used as a preposition with just four letters. Per MOS:CT (and WP:NCCAPS), the word should be lowercased. George Ho (talk) 21:35, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Pinging Oiyarbepsy and Allixpeeke for discussion. I advise you not to change the title until consensus is formed; agree? George Ho (talk) 21:35, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Support. Wikipedia has a house style, and a house style makes only sense if it is applied consistently. According to MOS:CT, past should be lowercased here. How the title is capitalized on King's homepage or elsewhere is irrelevant. Darkday (talk) 21:45, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

• Well duh. Who reverted that move, really? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:19, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
• Relevant Comment, would this be an exception according to the guideline exceptions for capitalization in titles: "Words that have the same form as prepositions, but are not being used specifically as prepositions". I'm not very good at 'parts of speech', so this may or may not be a reason to keep the title as is (which is, regardless, the name of the book). The 'Past' could be read as stories to read after midnight, stories which provoke the feelings of being awake and active after midnight, the time (four minutes past midnight, but that's the most unlikely use of the title), etc. Randy Kryn 12:05, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

No, this is not one of the exceptions mentioned in MOS:CT. "Four" may refer to stories or minutes, but in either case "past" is a preposition with the complement "midnight". Darkday (talk) 20:17, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose moving Four Past Midnight to Four past Midnight—If the question at hand were whether to move something like The Dog is Past the Cat to The Dog is past the Cat, I would agree that we are dealing with a preposition, and would therefore not oppose the move in order to maintain consistency with the guidelines.  But that is clearly not what we're dealing with here.

  Four is a number, an abstractum, and therefore not something that "exist[s] at any particular time or place, but rather exists as a type of thing, i.e., an idea, or abstraction."  Therefore, Past is not being used as a preposition here.  Everyone will agree immediately that there are no prepositions in 12:04 or Twelve oh Four.  Instead of Past being used as a preposition in this case, it is actually being used as part of a common way of saying 12:04 A.M., as part of a compound phrase.  If there is even a shred of doubt about this, then I implore that those with said doubt take a moment to step back and think about the first time they first heard this title.  Did, upon first hearing the title, they think of the time, or, did they start immediately thinking about the relative position of the abstractum four?  If the answer was time, then there can be no doubt that this is indeed a compound phrase meaning 12:04 A.M., and that Past is not herein being used as a preposition.

  Respectfully yours,
  allixpeeke (talk) 14:51, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

  P. S.  All that said, I would still go ahead and support the move (despite Past not being used in this instance as a preposition) if the author had intended the P to be lower-case.  He did not.

It seems the dictionaries do not agree with you. See e.g. Merriam-Webster, Macmillan or Oxford. All mention the usage of "past" as preposition in the context of time. Wiktionary literally says "The preposition past is used to tell the time. The time 5:05 is said as five past five." Darkday (talk) 20:17, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Four here is a noun that means four minutes and so past is indeed a preposition. Also our article titles are in sentence case, not title case, so the grammatical function is irrelevant anyway. Past should be lowercase. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:31, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Post-RM discussion

Are there any reliable sources that write Four past Midnight like Wikipedia does? Per WP:NCCAPS, "Because credibility is a primary objective in the creation of any reference work, and because Wikipedia strives to become a leading (if not the leading) reference work in its genre, formality and an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility." Wikipedia already looked bad when it briefly had Star Trek into Darkness as the article title despite none of the sources writing it this way. The policy at WP:TITLE states to follow how reliable sources write a title, and a quick look shows no sources writing "past" in lowercase. This lack of fidelity to how sources write the title needs to be revisited in the future. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 20:57, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

FYI, Erik, here are People mag and Jamaica Gleaner. --George Ho (talk) 21:38, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

These are good to note (though I'd favor People as evidence over Jamaica Gleaner). It would be worth evaluating the universe of sources to see what approach is commonly taken, especially in other kinds of reference works (Stephen King and/or horror encyclopedias). Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:17, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

The bibliography on Stephen King's website capitalises the P: http://stephenking.com/library/bibliography/index.html.--Wyvern Rex. (talk) 11:04, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Reopening discussion

Let's talk brass tacks. The vast majority of all sources use the capital P, as seen not only in the sources used here, but in myriad of more, including some of the most respected and stylistically conservative media, such as this a'New York Times review of King's later collection Full Dark, No Stars. If just about everyone capitalizes it, we must as well, as we have zero right to tell an author that their title of their work is wrong. Absolutely none. It's not a simple style matter where we can choose from equally valid options. One is correct, as chosen by the creator, the only person with the moral right to make that choice, and one is an embarrassment imposed by someone for whom the rules are paramount. Bollocks. oknazevad (talk) 23:12, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Langolier

Do we have any information on where this word comes from? Did King make it up, or is it adapted/borrowed from something else?

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 23:16, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Four past Midnight. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080509121845/http://www.stephenking.com/biography.php to http://www.stephenking.com/biography.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Y An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 23:46, 4 October 2017 (UTC) –  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  13:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 22 October 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Not sensing any clear agreement here, so for now we should fall back on the community consensuses in the guides noted by opposers. Should also note that this outcome means that Wikipedia has no problem with future RMs to continue to build consensus if so desired. (closed by page mover)  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  16:12, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

---

Four past Midnight → Four Past Midnight – It's been two years since this odd looking title has been on the page (odd for fans of King's works). So per the above reopening suggestion of Oknazevad, 'Past' should be upper-cased, according to the author and other sources, including the New York Times. See above comments for past RM's and discussions following the RM. Lower-case 'past' here doesn't read or look right, and takes away from the intent of the original name. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:00, 22 October 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. DrStrauss talk 13:28, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

• Support. As one would expect from my prior comments. oknazevad (talk) 15:43, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support move. This is a Star Trek Into Darkness-esque situation, where a preposition isn't being used as a preposition in the standard sense. The MOS is not intended to force lowercase "past" in this case.  ONR  (talk)  20:32, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

  Of course past is a preposition here. I already commented on this two years ago: "See e.g. Merriam-Webster, Macmillan or Oxford. All mention the usage of "past" as preposition in the context of time. Wiktionary literally says 'The preposition past is used to tell the time. The time 5:05 is said as five past five.' " Darkday (talk) 22:18, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

  The title isn't telling the time. That would be meaningless and without context. It refers to many things, but the time "12:04" is not one of them. Besides, the name of the book is well-known, and known with an upper-case "Past". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and when an article is written about a proper-name title, then the title should be presented as it is commonly known. Why do you think it's telling the time? Randy Kryn (talk) 12:39, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

  Did you notice that many of the cover designs for this book show a clock face? So interpreting four past midnight as a time seems to be quite natural. But actually I think the title is a double entendre: It can stand for the time, but also for "four stories past midnight". But whether "four" refers to minutes or stories is irrelevant for this move discussion, because in either case "past" functions as a preposition. Darkday (talk) 18:13, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

  The cover design on the article page includes a brightly-lit slash at about three past midnight, so "four" past has been separated from normal time. The four stories, possibly imply that they should be read after midnight, or are related to each other in the passing of time, but King and the publishers upper-case the name. I still don't understand why, when the title of a work is obvious, simple, and most familiar to readers, that the real name isn't the name of its page in the most widely read encyclopedia of all-time. Has a closer ever used the common-sense, ignore all rules, or reasonable exception language that's included on almost all relevant guideline pages? A WP:COMMONSENSE or WP:IGNORE ruling would likely upper-case this title, and a closer using it would give the ignore and common sense language (ignore all rules is already agree-upon to be above all other policies or guidelines if it can logically be applied) a little more credibility. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:14, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

  I think WP:GUIDES (policy actually) works also, Randy, which says to make some exceptions and use common sense at best. --George Ho (talk) 04:55, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Wikipedia has a house style, and a house style makes only sense if it is applied consistently. According to MOS:CT, past should be lowercased here. How the title is capitalized on King's homepage or elsewhere is irrelevant. Darkday (talk) 22:18, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

• Wikipedia also asks us to use the most familiar name. Upper case is the familiar way to display this title. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:23, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I suppose you are referring to WP:COMMONNAME. That convention applies when a person/work/topic has multiple names. But Four Past Midnight and Four past Midnight are the same name, just styled differently. And the styling of composition titles is governed by MOS:CT. Darkday (talk) 23:31, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

• Support. More recognisable. The current title just looks odd. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:51, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

  WP:RECOGNIZABLE can't possibly apply. Approximately zero English speakers (native or otherwise) are going to have their brains melt, and fail to recognize "past" and "Past" as the same word in a different style. If they can recognize it as "FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT" on it's own cover, there is obviously no RECOGNIZABLE argument that can be made about a one-character capitalization difference. "Just looks odd" = WP:IDONTKNOWIT, i.e. unfamiliarity with one of numerous preposition capitalization systems. If we picked a different one that looked right to you, then it would not look right to someone else. This will be the result no matter which one is chosen.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  12:10, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

• Support per above. The primary meaning of the phrase isn't intended to be the time 12:04. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:17, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

  What is the primary meaning, then? And why does the cover image show the clock at 4 minutes after 12? Dicklyon (talk) 01:36, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

  Dicklyon, great cover. Notice that the flaming divide is between two and four after midnight, not at four, and then it goes back to "normal" right at four. What it could easily represent are the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night after that divide. The shades and unknown and night crawlers after the average reader has gone to sleep. The illustrated cover actually hints at lots of meanings, and time is only one (and may be the least) of them. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:21, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• Neutral (but leaning toward oppose) - I was the one who proposed the move because I thought we should enforce MOS on the title. On one hand, I'm convinced by one side that multiple sources title-case the word "Past", yet the sources do not tell us why. However, "past" is also used as a preposition especially in the title, and WP:NCCAPS say to case prepositions containing no more than four letters. As said above, WP:GUIDES can allow exceptions on guidelines, such as MOS ones. Still, title-casing "past" just because sources do so is argumentum ad populum... isn't it? George Ho (talk) 04:55, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

  Change to oppose per Stanton and Darkday. Also, I don't see how "past" is used as a noun or anything else in this title other than a preposition. If rules are not enough, and argumentum ad populum doesn't apply, I believe that journalists are not experts on grammar. In other words, would supporting the move based on journalists' usages be argumentum ad verecundiam? --George Ho (talk) 08:43, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per MOS:TITLES; we do not capitalize prepositions of four letters or fewer. WP:COMMONNAME is not a style policy. We have this rule as a compromise between journalistic style, which often capitalizes all prepositions of three or more letters (i.e., just about everything but "to" and "in") and academic style, which capitalizes no prepositions at all, even long ones like "throughout" and "alongside". Please respect this 16-year compromise. Like all compromises, it does not make 100% of editors happy 100% of the time, but it is better than either alternative and we have it for a reason. We even apply the rule to edge cases, as in the recently closed RM at Talk:Bop till You Drop. PS: The nom inadvertently tells us why this move should not happen: "this odd looking title" = WP:IDONTLIKEIT / WP:IDONTKNOWIT.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  08:27, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, but as George Ho points out, the guideline policy states "Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". If "occasional exceptions" is to mean anything it should occasionally be applied by closers. In this case the well-known book title, as Necrothesp points out, "just looks odd", and if it looks odd to many editors, then it will look odd to other readers (I'd guess to most of them). As Wikipedia becomes the encyclopedia-of-record it should probably avoid such obvious situations concerning well-known titled works of art. Treating this particular title with common-sense leads directly to it being included in the occasional exceptions language, which is what the support comments seem to be saying. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:56, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

  No, it doesn't mean "occasional exceptions may apply when a closer feels like it." It means that the rules do not cover every imaginable circumstance (our MoS is very concise compared to, e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style and New Hart's Rules), so when a circumstance arises in which application of a rule in an overly literal way is a poor fit, then resort to WP:IAR. This is not such a case. There is nothing unusual or special about this case; the only thing happening here is a few people think "preposition" means "word that is always a preposition in my mind, like with and from, but not words that are sometimes not prepositions", and this is not actually what "preposition" means. You want a WP:IDONTKNOWIT exception because "past" doesn't seem like a preposition to you, or you just like to capitalize lots and lots in song and book titles, rules be damned. Neither is an IAR rationale.

  Re: "avoid such obvious situations concerning well-known titled works of art" – there are two fallacies in this idea. First, how well something is known has nothing to do with whether a publisher's house style applies to you. The "Over-Capitalize A Title" camp never seem to want to understand this, and keep arguing for mimicking logos and cover design, and they do not prevail, in RM after RM after RM. (At this point the "classic" example is probably the efforts to move a song to "Do It Like A Dude"). Second, it is not possible to "avoid" this sort of "situation": No matter what preposition capitalization rule WP employed, it would never satisfy everyone. If we adopted the 2- or 3-letter rules favored by (especially low-end) journalism, we'd end up with "To" and "For" capitalized, which almost all editors would disagree with. If we use the four-letter rule of most journalism, we'd end up with "With" and "From" which most editors would also oppose. If we went with the academic standard, we'd end up with "throughout" and "toward", which most editors who are not professors would howl about.

  Our five-letter rule has been a stable for a long time. Yes, it doesn't please everyone, but it angers the lowest number of editors and (more importantly) readers. If we just had no standard at all, then editors would fight about the same style nitpick again and again and again, article after article, each pushing their own preferred capitalization style. We haeve a house style to prevent that kind of productivity drain and hate factory from emerging again (MoS was created because it was already happening in WP's earliest days). The real way to "avoid such obvious situations" is to accept that WP, like all other serious publishers, has a house style, and follow it. As with all house styles, you will not prefer parts of it; it's just the nature of the beast of any system of rules for anything.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  12:03, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose – WP is not unique in having a style that uses lowercase for prepositions in composition titles. I see no recognizability issue is styling this one way or the other. Dicklyon (talk) 01:33, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - the style rules as currently formulated are clear on this issue, and prepositions of four letters of fewer are always lowercase.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:47, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

  Dicklyon and Amakuru, every guideline has an exceptions clause, and these are equally as valid and deserving of use as the guideline itself. Style rules on Wikipedia are meant to have exceptions, and if this case doesn't deserve a common-sense exception can you think of any that do? This book is clearly named Four Past Midnight, and looks extremely odd to some of us with the lower-case 'p'. It is upper-cased by the author and sources, including the New York Times. What better case to say 'Yes, this one should be exempt from the style restriction', which is what some of us are saying. Aye, my kingdom for a brave closer (well, maybe not my kingdom, but at least a hope that some closers read the guideline pages and notice the language prominently displayed on every guideline instruction: though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply, and say, yep, common sense exceptions are allowed). Randy Kryn (talk) 17:56, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

  I stand by what I said in opposing, but I don't really feel strongly against an exception, given the overwhelming majority caps in sources on this one. Dicklyon (talk) 21:31, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

  @Randy Kryn: in some ways I agree with you, this title probably would look better with the "Past" capitalised, but really that's a discussion that should be had over the wider rule, not to make one exception here. If there was some direct objective evidence that the author deliberately intended to style it with a capital P, then I would happily create an exception, but nobody has presented that evidence. And as Jenks24 notes below, to create an exception here would potentially open up a flood of other cases, and the reason for style rules is precisely to avoid that kind of argument wasting our time, when really there's no correct answer.

  Now if you wanted to open up a wider conversation about the "16 year compromise" that SMcCandlish mentions above, rather than creating one exception, I would be more interested in having the conversation. The current four-letter rule is arbitrary, and doesn't match any other style guide as far as I'm aware. The compromise which is supposed to please everybody could actually be pleasing nobody. Personally I would favour either capitalising all words without exception, or downcasing all prepositions without exception. I think either of those rules would be better than the current one (although the latter would still leave us with "Four past Midnight" of course). Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:03, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

  I've already researched this before, including style guides that use the five-letter rule (capitalize if five letters or more); should be in the WT:MOS or WT:MOSCAPS archives. Meanwhile, I've never in my life seen any style guide of any kind propose "capitalising all words without exception", not even all prepositions without exception. The "do it the academic way" was proposed early on. Given how much people want to fight to capitalize even four-letter prepositions, the idea that we'd ever get consensus to lower-case them all is right out the window.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  12:04, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

• Weak support. As noted, we do allow exceptions and there is a pretty good case in favour of following the sources and creating an exception here. My only concern is that it could open a can of worms and we end up with a lot of these types of RMs coming through, which largely waste a lot of time for little real benefit to the encyclopedia. Jenks24 (talk) 09:51, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

  Not a good rationale. "Following the sources" on a book, film, song, etc. title capitalization matter devolves directly to "adopt a style rule from entertainment journalism", and this is not what we do. By such a rationale, every single medical subject would be styled by the rules of medical style guides, everything about Christianity would be styled the way church publications prefer, etc., etc., topic after topic, and every left-over news or current-events topic that isn't subject to a more topically specific style regime, would follow the style of general journalism style guides. The result would be a) WP would have no style guide at all, and b) WP article style would veer wildly from the style of Kerrang and Rolling Stone to that of the densest academic journals to that of gamer 'zines to that of government and military and legal officialese, every time you looked at a new article; and c) nothing in WP would be written encyclopedically, since encyclopedias are never the dominate source pile for anything. We do not do go this route, for obviously good reasons. For a full examination of them, see WP:CSF and WP:SSF. We follow the sources for facts, we follow MoS for style. Works that are reliable for facts pertaining to a topic are not reliable for the best way to write about that topic for a global, general audience. The reliable sources for that are mainstream English-language style guides, on which MoS is already based, balancing their conflicting advice to produce a house style that is fairly formal but not excessively academic, and with average readers in mind.

  Making an "exception" here would definitely inspire a long-game, tendentious attempt to overturn all previous consensus discussions about capitalization in titles (probably starting with an attempt to get "Do It Like A Dude", given how much time was previously wasted agitating for that title, and surely next would be all other cases using "Like" as a preposition, then all other prepositions that are ever non-prepositions, then how knows were the slope would slip after that.

  It would happen on the exact basis you're advancing here: it's common in sources, which means sources that write about pop songs and movies and horror novels, which is almost entirely entertainment journalism, which fails the WP:INDY test. Not only is the majority of those publications' income derived from record labels, movie studios ,and other advertisers who want them to parrot their logo and cover and poster marketing style, most of these publishers are directly owned by the same corporations as the labels and studios. Journalism style is increasingly merging with marketing style, and it's not by accident.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  12:03, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

  • This isn't a case where you can trot out your essay. This is a case where the author of the work clearly chose one way to write the title of his work. It is Stephen King's book. We should match Stephe King's title. No one in this discussion is Stephen King. This idea that some random editors on Wikipedia can tell the creator of a work what his title should be is a ludicrous arrogance. You have no moral right. Stephen King does. oknazevad (talk) 00:15, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

    Nonsense. Publishers, not authors, determine how to format the titles of the books they publish, and the style various from publisher to publisher. This one actually chose "FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:36, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

• Support - Wikipedia is the only place I know of that doesn't capitalize prepositions of four letters per MOS:CT (note: Chicago Style doesn't capitalize any prepositions regardless of length). That requirement should be reexamined as most places that do uppercase prepositions only exempt those that are two- or three-letters long. (AP/APA, AMA). Its kind of an all or nothing thing, and if WP is going to cap them, then only the shortest ones (2-3 long) should be exempted. -- Netoholic @ 07:05, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
• Comment. There is another of King's books, Just After Sunset, which we do capitalize. In the lead it tells us that at first King wanted to name the book Just Past Sunset (guesswork would indicate that it was meant as a 2008 name-related companion to this one). Both titles are capitalized at the King website (see the link in the nomination, which shows the upper-and-lower cased Four Past Midnight). Netoholic's idea that only 2-3 letter prepositions should always be capitalized lower-cased seems fair, for as this case shows, some of the longer prepositions in titles do make sense capitalized and would actually improve the public's subliminal perception of the accuracy of this encyclopedia by their presence. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:21, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I think you mean 2 & 3 letter prepositions should not be capitalized. Or am I misunderstanding you?oknazevad (talk) 23:03, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
    • Thanks, my wandering fingers apparently flew somewhere on their own. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:46, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

      @Randy Kryn: if you think the rule should be amended to limit lower-case prepositions to three rather than four letters, then please propose that with an RfC at WP:NCCAPS. I think that would be a reasonable thing to do, but at the moment that's not the house style, and it's not right to just create one exception here that will just cause more arguments and time wasting. Far better to tackle the problem at source.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:31, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

      • Amakuru, thing is I agree with many if not most of the four letter lower-case examples. For instance, "like" seems almost universally correct lower-cased. This particular title is one which is an exception because I think many of the supporters are not reading "Past" as related exclusively to the telling of time, but as a deliberate metaphor which Stephen King is presenting the reader. This is why is "looks odd" to some of us, and so I'm thinking of the Wikipedian reader who comes upon it, says consciously or unconsciously "That's wrong. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, and look what editor anyone did here. Wikipedia must always be wrong". Seriously, that's my thinking in this case, it's an article which should be an exception to an otherwise fine guideline. And why the yell hasn't anyone signed up with the name User:Anyone?? I'd be tempted to change mine from Randy Kryn (talk) 15:42, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

        @Randy Kryn: you've lost me a bit there. I haven't actually read this book, so I don't know what the title really refers to, and the article doesn't mention that. Please could you explain what you mean by "a deliberate metaphor", and why that means that "Past" should not be treated like a true preposition? The crux on the debate seems to be the assertion that King deliberately intended the "Past" to be written with a capital letter. Not just that he put it that way on his website, but that it was a conscious decision, and that there was a definite artistic or other reason why he did so. If there's any concrete evidence of that, I'll very happily change to supporting the move, but I haven't seen it yet. Note that the title on the book cover is written all caps, so it's not that it *has* to be styled in only one way.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:54, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Past RM (literally)

I started the last RM in 2017, anyone like to start the next one? I don't think there are any sources that lower case "past". Only Wikipedia. If we follow the sources we're a long way behind and losing sight of the dust trail. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:22, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd support opening one, and support the move. The fact that this is literally the only place (outside of Wikipedia mirrors) that lowercases the "Past" proves that this isn't merely a style question, but a matter of the fact that the title of the collection is Four Past Midnight. oknazevad (talk) 20:19, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

And as for evidence, not the capitalization on the cover of this mass market paperback edition: at Amazon]. oknazevad (talk) 17:02, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Evidence is probably not needed for this RM, but is good to have. The only question concerns the "five-letter rule" guideline and common sense exception language. Every guideline's top-template encourages occasional common sense exceptions, it pretty much mandates them. There are no sources which lower-case 'Past' as 'past'. Only Wikipedia. Changing it seems the common sense choice, while keeping it as is makes no sense. Let's see if the esteemed lower case advocate Dicklyon would care to comment and tell us why this horror show titling of a notable horror book should be allowed to continue, or would he join us in chanting "Build the Past, Build the Past" (a pretty good political slogan). Randy Kryn (talk) 18:10, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

My opinion is not different from what I said in the past; not strongly opposed to an exception on this one, but I also think using our house style is fine. Dicklyon (talk) 19:16, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Just seeing where the line is drawn on common sense exception, as this is a clear-cut case of a page falling outside of one guideline but having no sources which can affirm the title choice. 0% sourcing should count for something. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:09, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 12 May 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved (non-admin closure) ~SS49~ {talk} 05:28, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

---

Four past Midnight → Four Past Midnight – As with every single choice they make within the creative process, the choice of how to title a work includes the author having freedom from the normal rules of grammar if they so choose. It may be unusual for them to wield that power, but the power is nonetheless theirs (and is part of their copyright). As evidenced by the paperback and the author's website, he chooses to use normal capitalisation on every word, including 'Past'. As has been pointed out above, it is most common elsewhere to style the name of this novel with an uppercase 'Past', because to change it would be to change the fabric of the author's creative choices. Publishers only impose their house style if the author has agreed to that, even if by tacit acquiescence. That aspect is part of the negotiation with a publisher, and sometimes an author makes it clear that they have made a different creative choice for the work. (For an example of this, see books such as House of Leaves.) Let's give the work its actual, crafted by a wordsmith, title as opposed to something that isn't actually the title of the book. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 02:42, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Support because there is no source which lower-cases 'past' in this title. It's 100% non-sourced. Wikipedia is not only out of step with this one, but it has taken upon itself to retitle a book by a major author - and nobody has taken the bait. This title is upper-cased everywhere you look. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:21, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Strong Support - WP:Verifiability and WP:No original research are core policies and take precedence over internal "house style" prescriptive efforts. -- Netoholic @ 06:19, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Strong support. In the last RM, I compared this to Star Trek Into Darkness. Though that work was much more controversial than this, it's the same situation; Wikipedia's naming policy shouldn't be absolute. O.N.R. ^(talk) 13:33, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I would go further, and say that Wikipedia's naming policies (ref Article Title Format) should be absolute about respecting copyright if authored titles are used as the title of a page - at the very least, for authors whose work is still in copyright governed by a country signed up to the Berne Convention. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 15:30, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support. The title is only 3 words long, which makes having the middle word lowercase seem pointless and odd. This title should be an exception to the general rule. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:13, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support Just like the previous times, and for the same reasons. oknazevad (talk) 04:38, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.