Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

A FARE TO REMEMBER is a great title...so great, I used it on a novella collection I did with Vicki Lewis Thompson and Kate Hoffman two years ago.  The stories were about a matchmaking cab driver in New York...ahead of our time, I guess, based on all the press the matchmaking cab driver in New York got this Valentine’s Day.

I, too, laughed my way through the renaming.  Hmmm...I wonder if ya’ll should make this a regular feature...not necessarily REnaming, but NAMING author’s books.  I know I could use help every so often!  I have a Blaze right now that is title-less because of lack of inspiration!

I love A FARE TO REMEMBER!  It’s too, too perfect. 

Well done!

hooray!  thanks!

i am glad the winners cover everything from the obvious but commercially viable play on words to snarky play on the bad cover art and back again to a diiiiirrrttty but truly brilliant play on words.

we are definitely some smart bitches!

Yay! I got second place! Never done that before! Yay me! :) Congrats to Aimee on winning!

Spam word: Moment94. Yup, I’m having a moment. A happy one.

Congratulations, Aimee!! Best title ever. :)

And YAY! I’m sorry I broke Sarah, but hee.  Giant scary man-hand and red thumb, here I come!

I think the British period thing - or should I say, full stop? - is because Ms and Mr aren’t abbreviations.  Mr is taking out letters from the middle of the word, and Ms isn’t really anything (though I suppose it’s derived from Mistress as Mrs is).  As opposed to, say, Prof. for Professor.

I just asked a British person and he said he DOES put a period after Mr, so we may have to fall back on the usual ways we mock British people: warm beer, Marmite, they still think they have an empire, etc.

I loved A Fare To Remember, too.

Actually, I do recall a HMB mini-series when I was a teenager (back when all M&Bs were just contemp or historical, none of these silly distinctions, you knew you were getting a romance and the exact details were an exciting mystery!) where each title was something To Remember--the only one I can remember is A Night To Remember.  And if I can remember the author I’ll sleep happy tonight.

In England, a period is something that happens to ladies once a month; it’s not something that happens in punctuation.  That little dot?  It’s called a full stop.

I guess you never ran into the raving arguments that occurred when it was debated whether or not Ms should have a period after it-- nearly as bad as the debate over whether Ms should be used at all as a salutation.  Conclusion was pretty much as above, not an abbreviation so no period.  However, I always thought (totally on my own) that the derivation was from the southern way of slurring over not knowing a woman’s marital status “Miz”.

Oops, titles were hilarious as well.

Many of us do continue to use full stops after titles like Mr.  They began to be abandoned in the early 1970s:  I remember that they were banned in the British Civil Service in that decade, when we still had typists, presumably because some management, umm, person had decided that several seconds per year per typist could be saved by reducing the number of punctuation marks typed.

Both forms are acceptable in BE, and like so many other minutiae of publishing, the details usually depend on individual publishers’ house-styles.  Any writer can be fairly sure that the way she has written something will be altered by an editor because the publisher has decided to change its house-style.

There are many other differences in punctuation rules and customs between AE and BE.  And, as someone else has pointed out - whether a Ms. has a period or not depends on the time of the month.

Congratulations Snarkhunter, I had a good laugh with “Park & Ride”!

DESPITE the US/NA title, I bought the book today.  I was, of course, horrified at the other Amazon.com suggestions, I may like which included the Tycoon’s Virgin, and Purchased for his Pleasure.  Aaargh.  Sadly, though I don’t think of someone who judges a book by its cover, I would never have purchased this book without your review.  Maybe I should e-mail Harlequin about those damn sexist titles ruining their marketing vibe.

Hey! Congrats to all! It was fun, and definitely a thrill to be mentioned in such lust-filled company.

Now I’m going to go brag to my husband.

I think we need a whole separate topic on Reasons To Make Fun of the British.  How ‘bout:  they take the royal family seriously?

At least us Brits actually had an empire once you guys never did yet seem to think the world is your empire ;)

confession: i am an american and i love the royals. 

confession #II: i own debrett’s peerage.

Congrats to all the winners.  The title suggestions were hilarious; we have some smart and funny bitches here!

‘I think we need a whole separate topic on Reasons To Make Fun of the British.’
_____

Hmm.  You might want to reconsider that.  Two can play at that game, you know, and it can get very ugly.

Re the lack of full stops, do tell me, what is Ms short for? ;-)

Reasons To Make Fun of the British: They’re too mature to retaliate with silly Reasons To Make Fun of the Yanks lists.

Sarah, the British also eat bubble-and-squeak.

Congratulations everyone!!!

And honestly, I sat here and read the names y’all came up with. My ribs hurt the rest of the day. My dog, cat, and sixteen year old thought I was crying tears of sadness because I was laughing so damned hard.

I salute you all!

I have always assumed that ‘Ms’, like ‘Mrs.’, is ultimately an abbreviation of ‘Mistress’, but pronounced in a regional dialect of American English.  (Whereas ‘ms.’, of course, is an abbreviation for ‘manuscript’, and is a much more venerable and useful term). 

It is hard to understand quite what was in the minds of those who wished to do away with a distinction between the married and unmarried titles, when ‘Ms’ came in.  The words have always existed in English - Miss for a young girl, Mistress (Mrs.) for an adult woman. It would have been so much more rational to call all females ‘miss’ up to the age of about 18 and ‘mrs.’ thereafter, rather than inventing an additional non-word, which has left us with THREE titles.

In other languages, it is perfectly normal to use the ‘married woman’ title (e.g. Madame, Frau) as opposed to the ‘girl’ title for anyone who seems grown-up and sensible, when the marital status is unknown.

Anyway, it’s too late now.  Thank goodness for titles that side-step the whole issue, like ‘Professor’ and ‘Dr.’

“Reasons To Make Fun of the British: They’re too mature to retaliate with silly Reasons To Make Fun of the Yanks lists.”

Nah, we’re more than immature enough, but damn, who has the time to write a comprehensive list on that topic? It’d take us years!