# 『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』を改題。



## Starfrown

I need a little help with the following:

『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』を改題。

Why does the author use double-quotes?

What exactly does this mean? My guess is that the book formerly had a different title.
 
Note: the sentence that immediately precedes this one is discussed here.


----------



## rukiak

Hello.

The reason is that it's the book title.
You can see the detail on the japanese wikipedia ; search word is 括弧.
You can also arrive there via searching bracket on the en-wikipedia and change language to Japanese.


----------



## Starfrown

Wikipedia says of the 二重鉤括弧:

「書名など特別の種目に属するものの名称を表す場合に用いる。」

But I've seen people use the simple 鉤括弧 around book titles before. Is that technically incorrect?
----
Also, what is the meaning of the entire sentence:『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』を改題? I can't quite understand it because the title of the book is indeed 『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』, but maybe I'm missing something.


----------



## rukiak

I think that's incorrect. 
二重鉤括弧:and  鉤括弧 are often misused, I think.
I also misuse those recently at informal texts, in the internet. I don't care that too much.  But formally, it should not be misused.




Starfrown said:


> Also, what is the meaning of the entire sentence:『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』を改題? I can't quite understand it


I can't understand it too. It may be a mistake.


----------



## Wishfull

Hi.
『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』を改題。is not unnatural to me.
I can understand it. Or at least I think I can understand and at least I think it is written by a native-Japanese writer.

みなさん　これが敬語ですよ　is probably the title of a book which teaches how to use (or write or speak) _keigo_.

Sometimes a title of a book is creative and strange for the purpose of attracting attention and buying motive.

*"Hi, everybody. This is it! 　KEIGO this is!"*
is the original title of the book.
I think in this short phrase, we can read the writer's message, something like;
_Hi, everybody. I know you are all bothering about Keigo.But don't worry. This is  Keigo. This book covers whole Keigos. I'll show you the true Keigo　in this book._

I think the book became popular to some extent, although I didn't know the book at all.
But the title of the book didn't appeal so much. So the writer thought he/she should change the title, and did it.

The whole sentence should be the headline of the book's advertisement.
*Changing title of the book whose original title was "Hi, everybody. This is KEIGO".*

What do you think?
At least with only this context, I imagine such a story.


----------



## Starfrown

Wishfull said:


> The whole sentence should be the headline of the book's advertisement.
> *Changing title of the book whose original title was "Hi, everybody. This is KEIGO".*
> 
> What do you think?
> At least with only this context, I imagine such a story.


That's exactly what I was thinking, and that's why it's confusing me so much. The title of the book is 『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』, but on the back there is the sentence: 『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』を改題 .

I thought that "(something) _wo kaidai_ (_suru_)" meant: "to change the title of (something)." It seems to me that you would have to put the old title before _wo kaidai. _Should we perhaps instead read it as:

『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』を改題にした。??

It doesn't seem terribly likely to me...


----------



## Wishfull

Hi.
I think I could solve your puzzle!

http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/htm/4569664547.html
This is the web site, isn't it?

The title of the book before 改題　was
『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』

And the revised title is
『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ。－図でよくわかる敬語のしくみ』

I think you understand.

They call　it as 改題, but actually they only added "-図でよくわかる敬語のしくみ”.
*
『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』を改題して、『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ。－図でよくわかる敬語のしくみ』としました。*

・・・とんだ茶番でしたね。


----------



## kaito

I think Starfrown's main problem is that he didn't expect the object of 改題 to be the old title.
He expected 本を改題する rather than 「old title」を改題する
Are both possible ?
Which other objects can 改題する take ?


----------



## Starfrown

kaito said:


> I think Starfrown's main problem is that he didn't expect the object of 改題 to be the old title.
> He expected 本を改題する rather than 「old title」を改題する
> Are both possible ?
> Which other objects can 改題する take ?


You have it the wrong way around Kaito. I did indeed expect the old title to serve as the object of 改題--the problem was that the old title and the new title seemed to be exactly the same. As Wishfull pointed out, the publishers apparently believed the addition of a subtitle to constitute a 改題.

My thanks to Wishfull for the solution to this rather silly problem.


----------



## rukiak

Wishfull said:


> Hi.
> They call　it as 改題, but actually they only added "-図でよくわかる敬語のしくみ”.
> *
> 『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ』を改題して、『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ。－図でよくわかる敬語のしくみ』としました。*
> ・・・とんだ茶番でしたね。



Oh.. now I understand. At the first time I seached several book site, there actually was that descrption, but I didn't recognize *『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ。－図でよくわかる敬語のしくみ』  *is the title, not *『みなさん　これが敬語ですよ。』**－図でよくわかる敬語のしくみ*.
That's tricky.   May be that's the esoteric rule that only the bookseller think it as comon knowledge. 


I searched an interesting one. That has a quite longer title.
『*元銀行員の探偵が教える*「*ヤバイ会社*」*はこう見抜け*！』
～超実践版「会社謄本」のトリセツ　パクリ系にやられるな！”取り込み詐欺！のニオイを会社謄本から解読　与信判断に自信がない社長さんのための即席Ｂ級テクニック集～　
中村勝彦著　こう書房　２００７
Among these,
the formal title is said to be  the part 『*元銀行員の探偵が教える*「*ヤバイ会社*」*はこう見抜け*！』, and the subtitle is said the part 超実践版「会社謄本」のトリセツ ( so up to here is the title ), so the others are not the components of the title. 
I can't recognize that.


----------

