Talk:My Darling Is a Foreigner

Title
The "official English title" as appeared on the Japanese poster has only one word ("My") capitalized, but we can probably change the for style

The film does not appear to have been widely-released in English-speaking countries (the English-subtitle DVD on Amazon appears to be from HK). Searching on Amazon revealed only the "My darling is a foreigner" orthography on all the official DVD/Blu-Ray covers and posters, but Amazon appears to have unilaterally decided that it should be spelled as either "My Darling Is a Foreigner" or "MY DARLING IS A FOREIGNER".

The only official source that has sensible capitalization for either the manga or the film that I have found is, which has a lower-case i, even though this violates WP:NCFILM.

Additionally, this film being a derivative work means it probably shouldn't be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, as neither it nor the manga have received wide-release outside Japan, but within Japan the manga is more prominent. I recently moved the manga article from its previous (confusing) title to My Darling is a Foreigner (manga), and I think My Darling is a Foreigner (lower-case i) should be made into a disambiguation page.

Therefore, I would also suggest we move this page to either My darling is a foreigner (film) (the official English title) or My Darling is a Foreigner (film) (the official English title of the manga of the same name, which uses more reasonable capitalization) or My Darling Is a Foreigner (film) (the title of the film according to NCFILM, but with a parenthesized disambiguator). My Darling Is a Foreigner should probably also redirect to the disambiguation page, although I can't find a Wikipedia policy that justifies this capitalization for the manga. The other non-disambiguated spellings (mostly obscure romanizations of the Japanese title) can also be changed.

elvenscout742 (talk) 01:08, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Any suggestions?


 * Yes -- stick with WP:NCFILM and use the present title. Jpatokal (talk) 01:59, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The English Wikipedia's guidelines clearly state that the only words that are not to be capitalized are any short conjunctions, prepositions, and articles (less than 5 words). Verbs like "is", "are", "has" are capitalized, as are any nouns. Also, as there are no other articles with the title "My Darling Is a Foreigner" there is no need for a disambiguator.— Ryulong ( 琉竜 ) 02:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * There is now, read Elvenscout's comment a bit more carefully. Jpatokal (talk) 04:46, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Anyone have a problem with the disambiguation page being named My Darling is a Foreigner (disambiguation), and all possible titles that don't have (manga) or (film) attached being made into redirects for that page? I'm just a little concerned that there is no set rule on capitalizing "is" in the titles of comic books (especially when it has an English title with lower-case i), but that the disambig page may need to capitalize the i in accordance with NCFILM or something... elvenscout742 (talk) 04:58, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I honestly dont think it matters too much. We can it is also stylized in all caps and all miniscules.Lucia Black (talk) 05:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the way the titles are situated now is fine. It was a good decision to move the manga title to one with a qualifier, but a disambiguation page for two articles seems unnecessary. For the film, it seems there is plenty of reasons to leave the title as is. Boneyard90 (talk) 06:47, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * But it's not the primary topic. It's the film adaptation of a very popular manga in Japan, and neither one has received much attention in English-speaking countries. (When I wrote this remark I was kind of assuming that the film had received a DVD release in the US or the UK, but on further inspection I found that not to be the case.) I agree that a disambig page for two articles is a bit weird, though. Perhaps we should open a move discussion at Talk:My Darling is a Foreigner (manga) to establish a consensus on which is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? I'm open to debate on this one. (Also, if the latter page is determined to be the primary topic, this page should definitely be made into a redirect to the manga and the film should be at My Darling Is a Foreigner (film).) elvenscout742 (talk) 06:58, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Also just noticed another problem -- if everything remains where it is, then the official English title of the manga (which differs slightly from both the official title and the NCFILM title of the film) still redirects to this page. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Both articles should have their names written as "My Darling Is a Foreigner". There is no question about that.— Ryulong ( 琉竜 ) 09:27, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Wait, why should NCFILM apply to an article on a comic book? elvenscout742 (talk) 15:37, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't think we should get too hung up about what styling official sources use. The idiosyncratic styling of the title on official posters etc. is probably a result of the film company not being fully familiar with English capitalization rules, rather than a deliberate choice to use a particular style. I also think we should go with WP:NCFILM, but I interpret it as pointing to the title My Darling is a Foreigner. I think is in this case counts as a "coordinating [conjunction] that [is] four letters or shorter", and so should be in lowercase. As for the disambiguation, it is my understanding that in cases where we have a book and a film that need disambiguating we usually put the original version at the undisambiguated title. Hence we have the book series at Harry Potter but the film series at Harry Potter (film series). I can't see any particularly persuasive reason that My Darling is a Foreigner was more well-known as a film than a book, so I think we should go with the standard way of doing things. So we would have the manga at My Darling is a Foreigner and the film at My Darling is a Foreigner (film). For people looking for the film we can use a hatnote at the top of My Darling is a Foreigner - there's no need for a disambiguation page for just two articles. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 10:42, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Right now I'm more concerned with the fact that the manga article has been moved to My Darling Is a Foreigner (manga) based on NCFILM, even though it isn't an article on the film. Not capitalizing "is" seems intuitive enough to me, and the official spelling (My Darling is a Foreigner) should be perfectly acceptable for a Wikipedia article on the manga. Also, I'd like to establish consensus on which is the primary topic. If we aren't making a disambiguation page, then does one of the articles have to be non-parenthesized? Or can we have My Darling is a Foreigner and all variants redirect to the manga article? elvenscout742 (talk) 16:33, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've just had a look around, and it looks like the guideline we want is MOS:CT. Unfortunately it looks like Ryulong is right and that I'm going to have to eat my words - in that guideline it explicitly states that is should be capitalised. It still seems a little jarring to capitalise is to me in this case, but I can't really argue against the guideline. It would be interesting to see what external style guides have to say about cases like this, but I don't have any at my disposal. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 17:09, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * MOS:MANGA says we should use the official title, though. I would like to see the documented consensus that led to "is" being capitalized in all titles of works, since it seems absolutely counter-intuitive to me. I've also noticed that most of the guidelines don't specifically mention the verb to be, and so we are just defaulting. elvenscout742 (talk) 17:19, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "Official title" does not concern the way the title has been stylized. It a guideline that all verbs in the title of a work of art are to be capitalized on Wikipedia. And MOS:CT specifically states that conjugation of the "to be" verbs are to be capitalized. I don't know why you are fighting against this.— Ryulong ( 琉竜 ) 17:50, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, yes, if we don't have a disambiguation page then one of the articles needs to be de-parenthesised. We would then simply put a hatnote on the de-parenthesised page to the parenthesised page. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 17:16, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * (Edit conflict) Then shouldn't that one be the manga? Neither is exceptionally well-known in the English-speaking world; the manga is better-known in Japan; and the manga is the source work. elvenscout742 (talk) 17:19, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * We might do what Japanese Wiki did and merge the two. This seems to be a trend there, though, where English Wikipedia goes the other way and favours independent articles. But over their the "article" is about the manga, and it has a sub-section on the film adaptation. elvenscout742 (talk) 17:22, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I've just cut the Gordion knot here and merged the two pages together. It's much simpler seeing as they were two stubs that weren't any useful on their own. However, this whole problem started when you (Elvenscout742) decided to rename Is He Turning Japanese? into "My Darling is a Foreigner".— Ryulong ( 琉竜 ) 17:59, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * See the relevant talk page. I changed the title of the article from one that was incorrect to one that is correct. Is He Turning Japanese? is the name of a separate book. elvenscout742 (talk) 00:43, 31 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Capitalizing the “is” is jarring. The problem is that “is” may or may not be a verb.  Often, it is a copula.  In this case, it is not being used as a verb, but as a copula. See WT:Manual of Style/Titles.  —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:18, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

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