Subj : Beauty and the Beast
To   : Alexander Koryagin
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Wed Mar 31 2021 23:30:13

Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 AH>  But whether "Beauty" is seen there as the name of a
 AH>  person or "beauty" in the general sense or both, the
 AH>  article would still be omitted in English....

                           [...]

 AK>  I even heard that articles in titles are not necessary
 AK>  in English at all. :)


          That would be going a bit too far.  It is true that a title may have the initial article listed at the end, following a commma, in the library card catalogue & suchlike... e.g. CANADIAN OXFORD DICTIONARY, THE.  We have so many titles beginning with "a(n)" or "the" we'd never find anything otherwise.  :-)

          It is also true that I say "my CANADIAN OXFORD DICTIONARY" at times, particularly in this echo, but I'm writing informally here.  If I were writing an academic essay I'd make sure all the i's were dotted & all the t's crossed.



 AK>  So it easily could be "Beaty and Beast", isn't it?


          Only if both are proper nouns.  In this tale "the beast" is a prince under a magic spell.  Whatever his real name is I doubt it's "Beast", although he's listed that way in the movie credits.  AFAIC what matters for purposes of this discussion is whether or not he's so named in the movie itself.

          Other titles using proper nouns (as opposed to descriptors):


             1)  names of people

                  Huckleberry Finn
                  Pippi Longstocking
                  Peter Pan

                  Damon and Pythias
                  Frankie and Johnny
                  ... possibly also

                  Antony and Cleopatra
                  Romeo and Juliet

                  ... but Fowler's brought to my attention that HAMLET
                  was known 'way back when by various titles which are
                  generally shortened now by common consent.  The same
                  may also apply to other Shakespearean plays....  :-)


             2)  names of places

                  Hawaii
                  South Pacific
                  New York, New York


          Names of various abstract/theoretical ideas or fields of study often appear without articles in English.  For this reason, I used "war" & "history" among my examples... but if you need more examples I can probably come up with other titles such as THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY or DUET FOR VIOLA AND CELLO.  :-)



 AK>  Another thing is that the in the Disney's cartoon the
 AK>  girl was called "Belle", not "Beauty". It is legal to
 AK>  say that "Belle was a beauty". ;)


          Uh-huh.  We adopted the word "belle" from French long ago... and use it to refer to an attractive female, as seems to be the case here.  While I've actually met a woman named (or nicknamed) "Belle", though, I don't know anyone named "Beauty".  Like music, translation is as much an art as a science.  :-))



 AK>  In Russia we consider the cartoon name as, probably,
 AK>  "The beautiful girl and the beast".


          That's how I'd interpret the title of the story in French & Italian. But I know that, in French at least, it's not acceptable to leave out articles the way we often seem to do in English from time to time....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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