You're listening to Away with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett. I was looking through my Netflix queue the other day, and I was trying to decide what movie to see next. There were so many titles on that long list, and all of them were saying, pick me, pick me, pick me. Which made me wonder, Grant. If you're only using words, how do you make a movie title stand out? And that got

me to thinking about working titles. And how is it that sometimes Hollywood decides to change

the title of a movie that they've been working on? And you know, you can have a lot of fun with

this at the internet movie database, IMD.com, you know, because they have tons and tons of

information, including the working title of the film before it was released. And of course,

there's that famous example of Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall. Do you know what that was called

originally? I don't, no. He's called Anhedonia. Oh, yes. The inability to experience pleasure. So that was probably a good call. And what about the movie that was originally titled $3,000? Do you know what that was? Or can you guess? I don't know. Desperado by Robert Reyes. I don't know. What? $3,000 became pretty woman. That's, you know, a much better call, right? Fast improvement, sure. And here's one more. You'll guess this one. Originally, this movie was called Harry. This is Sally. When Harry met Sally, sure. Yeah, now why is it that when Harry met Sally is a better title? I don't know. Are we looking at it only in retrospect? Is it only because we know that the movie was a great movie and that it was highly successful? And now it seems like, of course, it must be called when Harry met Sally. Yeah, I know. It does seem like that. I think that a lot of these create a sense of expectation. Yeah. Don't you think? I do. Okay, well, what happened when Harry met Sally?

It's like half of an asked question.

It's not even a whole question, right?

Yeah.

I mean, they could have titled it, I'll have what she's having. That probably would have been good, too. That is the line from the movie, right? Yeah, yeah, it's sort of like they say something. It's like going bump on it.

And you just want to know what the next thing is.

Where's the bits? Where's the bits?

Right. Where's the bits?

Where's the bits?

Right, where's the bits?

But there's got to be an art and a science to that.

IMDB, by the way, the Internet Movie Database has this weird thing that when you look up a film, like for some reason the top film will be like the Italian title or something or known in Germany.

I'm like, why do I care?

Why are you including that in your results I don't care I don't care just show me the film well we'll talk

more about that later in the show but in the meantime you can call us about any aspect of language the

number is 877 929-9673 or you can email us that address is words at wayward radio.org. Hello, you have a way with words.

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