Compound Title

A Compound Title is when the individual titles of parts of a larger work can be strung together to form a title for the whole thing. Note that if the whole thing already has its own title, these may not coincide. The Compound Title may also be used to set off a few related episodes of a series, levels of a game, or similar, in which case it is a special case of Cross Referenced Titles. Commonly they make up a common English phrase, because these are common titles.

Compare Episode Finishes the Title, where the title of each episode is compounded, seperately, with the overall tite of the work.


 * Bottom used a variation of adding the episode title at the end of the series' name. ("'s Up" and "'s Out")
 * Bugs - had episodes "What Goes Up..." and "Must Come Down" about a space mission.
 * Castle had the episodes "Tick, Tick, Tick..." and subsequent "Boom!"
 * Great White - wrote an album Once Bitten, followed it up with Twice Shy.
 * The two halves of Asimov's Second Foundation were originally published as "Now You See It--" and "--And Now You Don't."
 * Dawson's Creek used the same compound title for its two part series finale.
 * Sasha's first two albums: "Dedicated to", "You"
 * Harry Turtledove's Counting Up, Counting Down anthology features two stories at the beginning and end, "Counting Up..." and "...Counting Down." Both are actually the same story told from different perspectives.
 * On the Panic! at the Disco album A Fever You Can't Sweat Out: Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off, But It's Better If You Do (though the tracks are further separated by Intermission).
 * FreeSpace 2 had two consecutive missions named "Love the Treason..." and "...But Hate the Traitor".
 * Two short works by Jack Williamson: "With Folded Hands" "...And Searching Mind."
 * The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov - had 3 parts, "Against Stupidity", "The Gods Themselves", "Contend In Vain".
 * Grey's Anatomy: "It's the End of the World", "As We Know It".
 * On Life two sequential episodes are entitled "Dig A Hole" and "Fill It Up", forming the teaching of the Zen master murdered in the first one.
 * Two episodes of Lost also compounded the episode title with the series name - "...And Found" and "...In Translation"
 * A Two-part Nancy Drew story had the two books titled "Lights, Camera..." and "Action!"
 * The song titles on Side Two of the Bob Dylan album Nashville Skyline; Lay Lady Lay, One More Night, Tell Me It Isn't True, Country Pie, Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You.
 * Pathways into Darkness - had level "They May Be Slow..." followed by "...But They're Hungry."
 * Robot Chicken had an entire season's worth of this, forming an entire letter.
 * South Park - "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?" "Probably."
 * Space: Above and Beyond's last two episodes: "And If They Lay Us Down To Rest..." and "...Tell Our Moms We Done Our Best."
 * When TWW (a Welsh TV broadcaster) lost its broadcasting licence, its last two programmes were "All Good Things" and "Come to an End".
 * The first song on Heavenly's album Dust to Dust is called "Ashes to Ashes...", and the last is called "...Dust to Dust".
 * The chapter titles of If on a winter's night a traveler form a poem.
 * Supposedly, the Disney Channel movie Now You See It... was intended to have a sequel titled ...Now You Don't but some of the higher ups forced Alyson Michalka to choose between that and Cow Belles.
 * NCIS did this with the season 6 episodes "Cloak" and "Dagger".
 * Criminal Minds:
 * "To Hell..." and "...And Back"
 * "Hit" and "Run"
 * The miniseries Spin-Off to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was called Lock Stock, and the episodes were titled "...And [number] [MacGuffins]"
 * Two Guys, a Girl And A Pizza Place had a similar pattern.
 * The the 360 version of Saints Row 2 gives you an achievement called "A Brighter Future" for completing the last mission, which is called "...And A Better Life". Combined, they form the Ultor Corporation motto.
 * Breaking Bad had "Cat's in the Bag..." "...and the Bag's in the River".
 * Used for working titles of Magic: The Gathering sets. Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, and New Phyrexia were called Lights, Camera, and Action in memos, for instance.
 * The Binding of Isaac's soundtrack has two songs called "Thine Wrath..." and "...Be Done".
 * Jeopardy! often does this with the category names, where two or more will form a sentence when host Alex Trebek reads them.
 * With Strings Attached. Chapter 18 is “Rise and Shine,” and Chapter 19 is “Shine and Rise.”