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Or, A Work By Any Other Name; Or, The Work So Nice, They Named It Twice (Or in this article's case, [[Rule of Three|thrice]]).
Sometimes a work gives itself multiple alternative titles ''in the title'', usually giving the shortest title first, with the result being a [[Short Title: Long Elaborate Subtitle]]. Using this trope these days can give a similar [[Retraux]] feel as [[In Which a Trope Is Described]].
Compare [[Colon Cancer]].
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga, or: Japanese Illustrated Media ==
* Every episode title in (the first three seasons of) ''[[Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?]]'', although only one title is read aloud in the next-episode preview.
== Fairy Tales, or: The Oldest Ones in the Books ==
* "[[Cinderella (novel)|Cinderella]], or the Glass Slipper"
== Films, or: Motion Pictures ==
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* ''[[The Fearless Vampire Killers]] or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck''
* ''[[Spider Baby or The Maddest Story Ever Told]]''
== Literature, or: The Art of Words ==
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* ''Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady'' by [[Samuel Richardson]].
* ''Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded'', also by [[Samuel Richardson]].
* Poet [[Sonnets from the Portugese|Elizabeth Barrett Browning]] penned and titled a poem ''[http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/victoria/ref/ps_berg_cd13_200.html Sebastian, or Virtue Rewarded]'' when she was about 9 years old. The contents still apparently haven't been published.
** In fact, [[wikipedia:Virtue Rewarded|subtitling your book "or: Virtue Rewarded"]] was apparently <s>Victorian</s> Stuart- and Hanoverian-era slang for {{smallcaps|Morals Inside®}}. See the Theater section.
*** Subverted by the Marquis de Sade's novels ''Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue'' and ''Juliette, or Vice Amply Rewarded''.
* The [[Banned in China|famously banned]] erotic novel ''[[Fanny Hill]], or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'' by [[John Cleland]].
* ''[[Cecilia]], or Memoirs of an Heiress'' by [[Frances Burney]].
* ''[http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/I_Cthulhu I, Cthulhu]; or, What's a Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing in a Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)?'', by [[Neil Gaiman]]
* The Thomas Hobbes book ''Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil''.
* [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]], or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death''
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* ''[[The Inheritance Cycle|Brisingr]], or The Seven Promises of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular''. The second one just isn't as catchy.
* John O'Farrell's ''An Utterly Impartial History of Britain, or 2000 Years of Upper-Class Idiots In Charge'' and ''An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain, or 60 Years of Making The Same Stupid Mistakes As Always''.
* Referenced in ''[[
* [[Wil Wheaton]]'s short story ''The Saga of Spongebob Vega$pant$ (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love [[Star Trek]])''.
* [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] was famously fond of subtitles, but the only
* ''The Sea Cook, or [[Treasure Island]]''.
* ''[[Varney the Vampire|Varney the Vampire, or, the Feast of Blood]]''
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Or: Why Suck Is OK, Blow Is Not
Plus: Danger! Sushi Tapeworms! }}
* [[Voltaire (
* [[Michael Moorcock]]'s ''[[Doctor Who]]'' novel ''The Coming of the Terraphiles, or Pirates of the Second Aether!''
* ''[[The Diamond Age]], Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'' by [[Neal Stephenson]]
* ''[[Principia Discordia]] or How the West Was Lost,'' was the original title. The 4th edition is more well known, and bears the [[Short Title: Long Elaborate Subtitle|slightly more cumbersome title]], ''Principia Discordia or How I Found Goddess And What I Did To Her When I Found Her: The Magnum Opiate Of Malaclypse The Younger, Wherein is Explained Absolutely Everything Worth Knowing About Absolutely Anything.''
== Music, or: The Rhythm's Gonna Get Ya ==
* Most any time part of a song title is in parentheses, this means that the part included in the parentheses is an alternate title.
** Fairly often when this happens, a song already has a title, but the artist (or the studio) realizes fans call the song by another name, and hence use the alternate title as recognition
* ''Every'' song on [[Radiohead]]'s album ''Hail to the Thief'' (including the album itself, which is actually titled "Hail to the Thief, or, The Gloaming"). For example, singles "There There" and "2+2=5" are really called "There There (The Boney King of Nowhere)" and "2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)". While the secondary titles are rarely ever used, the tracklist on the back cover includes both, and the lyrics in the liner notes ''only'' use the secondary titles.
* The Incredible String Band's 1967 album ''The 5000 Spirits or The Layers of the Onion''.
* Sufjan Stevens sometimes combines this with his infamous love for the [[Long Title]]. Consider this whopper from the ''Illinois'' album: "The Black Hawk War, Or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization And Still Feel Good About Yourself In The Morning, Or, We Apologize For The Inconvenience But You're Going To Have To Leave Now, Or "I Have Fought The Big Knives And Will Continue To Fight Them Until They Are Off My Land"
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* Love's ''Forever Changes'' album includes a song called "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale".
* Except for the short introductory track, every track on Lemon Jelly's [[Concept Album]] ''69-95'' is titled with the last two digits of the year in which the track's principal sample was released, followed by a more easily-remembered title, e.g. "''79 aka The Shouty Track", "'95 aka Make Things Right", etc. The year element is usually dropped when the tracks are referred to in any other context.
* The Left Banke's ''Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina''. Apparently either they or their label couldn't decide which single should be the [[Title Track]].
== Radio, or: The Hills Are Alive with the Sound ==
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** Shortly after announcing that title, you could hear "There's money for you, there's money for you..."
** Another one went "The Greatest Mountain in the World, or, I Knew Fred Crute, or, The Greatest Mountain in the World!" <ref>We're not entirely sure who Fred Crute was.</ref>
== Theater, or: Life Is But a Stage ==
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* Edward Albee's ''The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?''
* Every [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] work except ''Trial by Jury'' and ''The Sorcerer''.
* In ''[[The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)|The Complete Works of William Shakespeare]]'', the cast make fun of how [[Strictly Formula]] Shakespeare's comedies tend to be, and thus abridge them all into one play. The title is:
** The Comedy of Two Well-Measured Gentlemen Lost in the Merry Wives of Venice on a Midsummer's Twelfth Night in Winter, or Sybaline Taming Pericles the Merchant in the Tempest of Love as Much as You Like it for Nothing, or The Loveboat Goes to Verona, or Four Weddings and a Transvestite!
* Eric Overmyer's ''[[On the Verge]], or the Geography of Yearning.''
* [[Eugene Ionesco]]'s ''Amédée, or How to Get Rid of It''
== Video Games, or: A Perfectly Good Waste of Time ==
* The 1993 adventure game, ''[[Peppers Adventures In Time|Pepper's Adventures in Time]]'' introduces each chapter of the game with such a title. One title hints at what you'll generally be focusing on, while the other gives a clue about the defining event of the chapter.
* ''[[Stickman and Cube]]'' does this in storylines, e.g., "Robo-Cube. Or, Cube Disappears #2", to make it clear that the comic in question is part of said storyline, and which part in particular.▼
* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0131.html Episode 131]: Sour Relations, or "Tell Me More, Tell Me More", followed by [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0132.html Episode 132]: Dour Narrations, or "Like, Did He Have a Pod?"▼
** The alternate titles constitute a [[Shout-Out]], and a [[Grease|most unexpected one]] at that.▼
* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' does it
== Western Animation, or: Moving Drawings ==
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** ''A Scooby Doo Christmas'' (or ''Ho Ho Horrors'')
* ''The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall'' follows the same convention that plagued the book series it's parodying, "The Rover Boys".
▲== Webcomics, or: All the Fun, No Paper ==
▲* ''[[Stickman and Cube]]'' does this in storylines, e.g., "Robo-Cube. Or, Cube Disappears #2", to make it clear that the comic in question is part of said storyline, and which part in particular.
▲* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0131.html Episode 131]: Sour Relations, or "Tell Me More, Tell Me More", followed by [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0132.html Episode 132]: Dour Narrations, or "Like, Did He Have a Pod?"
▲** The alternate titles constitute a [[Shout-Out]], and a [[Grease|most unexpected one]] at that.
▲* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' does it 4 times in one strip with [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-03-11 "Nanase: Scantly Clad For Hire" OR "Justin's Frustration" OR PERHAPS "Justin's Cat's Out Of The Bag" OR MAYBE "Dan Couldn't Decide On A Title"]
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Title Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Either or Title]]
[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]
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