Duplicate Keywords - List #46 ("crying" keywords) (Proposals for Permanent Merger and Auto-Conversion)

@Peter_pbn​ That is a good point about "male-cries" and "female-cries." In other words, it could be read as "the cries of a male" and "the cries of a female" (perhaps off-screen, heard from a distance).

Since you raised that valid point, I will delete those particular keywords from the list. 

As for the "permanent state" concept, I don't mean to suggest the permanent state idea as a hard and fast rule or way of reading these keywords. It is just one factor among many, and it may even largely be a subconscious factor. 

"man-runs" is just more accurate than "running-man."  Part of it is the action should be the focus, as augmented by who is doing the action, rather than the other way around. 

Since these are very short phrases boiled down into a couple words, it can be difficult to arrive at the most appropriate wording. But in real life we would be more likely to say something like "I saw a man running" or "I saw a man run" than "I saw a running man." 

The "sleeping" (vs. "sleeps") example is the one where it is hardest to see this distinction. The "running" (vs. "runs") example is the one where it is easiest to see the distinction. Other keywords (like "crying" vs. "cries") are somewhere in the middle.

Officially, IMDb has no preference for this. But unofficially (and admittedly anecdotally), it seems the better practice is to use action verbs stated in the present tense.

Another good example is all the "wears" vs. "wearing" keywords involving items of clothing worn by certain characters. I always thought these were relatively dumb keywords to add unless they are important to the plot. Also, the fact that someone is wearing something is not really an action in the sense that crying or running is an action. But the clear preference is for keywords like "man-wears-eyeglasses" and (rather than "man-wearing-eyeglasses" or "man-in-glasses" or "bespectacled-man,") and "man-wears-underwear" (rather than "man-in-underwear"), etc.

(Some users insist on adding the "man-wears-eyeglasses" and "man-wears-underwear" type keywords to all titles where they occur, whether or not that the "act" of wearing that particular item of clothing or glasses is truly "notable" or furthers the plot. But that is another topic for another day.)

Another example that comes to mind is "sweaty-man" vs. "man-sweating" vs. "man-sweats." The keyword "sweaty-man" does seem to imply a permanent state, perhaps more so then any of the other examples. And in most titles where "sweaty-man" has been used, I doubt these characters constantly sweat through every moment of their (fictional) lives.  "man-sweats" will be more accurate for the vast majority of titles.

@Peter_pbn​ What do you think of "male-crying" and "female-crying?" I edited the list to merge into these keywords for now, since they will be closer to the other mergers than "crying-male" and "crying-female." In that sense they will be similar to keywords like "female-in-a-shower" and "female-removes-her-clothes" -- all awkward but perhaps necessary keywords.

I also noticed that there really aren't any other keywords like "crying-female." The closest I could easily find is the keyword horny-female (51 titles), which is somewhat different because the word "horny" here can't be easily translated into a verb. 

I believe "crying-female" and "crying-male" are just popular but poorly formatted keywords, and something should be done with them. The best solution I can think of is to convert them to "female-crying" and "male-crying."

Agree, especially to the objection of using "male" and "female" as nouns.  Problem is: one doesn't know if it is a man, teenage-boy, boy, little-boy, or baby-boy.  Again, viewing the specific title, and individually auditing them, is probably the only way to be accurate.  That's probably an impossible task, since some titles may not be available for viewing.  And, some would argue that the general "male" in inclusive, and covers ALL males: man, teenage-boy, boy, little boy, and baby-boy.  This would mean the addition of thousands and thousands of new "male" keywords.

P.S.  Of course, the same also goes for "woman, teenage-girl, girl, little-girl, and baby girl.  It is a sad, mysogynistic fact that "girl" is too often used for "teenage-girl" or "woman."

"young-man" and "young-woman" have always confused me.  (Take about subjectivity!)

Also, I have always preferred active voice over passive voice.

male-crying and female-crying would be read as adjective + noun, as in a male type of crying and a female type of crying.

@Peter_pbn​ 

Point well taken.

That reminds me of two other really bad keywords:

female-tears (177 titles)

male-tears (104 titles)

What do you suggest we do with the "female-crying" and "male-crying" keywords? Merge them into "crying-female" and "crying-male?"

And since I brought the "tears" keywords up, as much as I wish we could also merge the "tears" keywords into the "crying" keywords, I suppose they are not true duplicates; whomever is using the "male-tears" keyword, for example, probably literally means titles where you can see tears streaming down a male character's cheeks.

"man-runs" is just more accurate than "running-man."  Part of it is the action should be the focus, as augmented by who is doing the action, rather than the other way around.

Very subjective, I think. 

Since these are very short phrases boiled down into a couple words, it can be difficult to arrive at the most appropriate wording. But in real life we would be more likely to say something like "I saw a man running" or "I saw a man run" than "I saw a running man." 

Dangerous line of reasoning when "man runs" is not something you would be likely to say.

Another good example is all the "wears" vs. "wearing" keywords involving items of clothing worn by certain characters.

That is grammatically different from the words this thread is about.

But the clear preference is for keywords like "man-wears-eyeglasses" and (rather than "man-wearing-eyeglasses" or "man-in-glasses" or "bespectacled-man,") and "man-wears-underwear" (rather than "man-in-underwear"), etc.

At least after you had many of those keywords merged ...

What do you suggest we do with the "female-crying" and "male-crying" keywords? Merge them into "crying-female" and "crying-male?"

I guess.

@Peter_pbn​ 

Okay, I will change the "female" and "male" keywords again. It's the best we can do with these awkward keywords.

​It sounds like I may not have convinced you yet that the "cries"/"vomits/"runs" form of these keywords is slightly better than the "crying"/"vomiting"/running" form, but I have one additional point for your consideration.

It's true that in everyday speech, we would not often say either "the man runs" or "the running man" but rather "man running" (as in "I see a man running over there"). 

With that said, in everyday speech, one common use of the "running man" form is to distinguish between different people. For example,  you might refer to "the running man" as a shorter version of "the man who is running" (which is a mouthful) if you want to point out "the running man" as distinguished from other people. Or you might refer to "the laughing man" and "the crying man" if both men are together and you are trying to distinguish between them. 

But with keywords, there is no reason for any such distinctions. Each keyword stands on its own. 

Overall, my general thinking is it is better to return these verbs to their verb forms within the keywords (expressed in active voice), rather than using these verbs as adjectives within the keywords. Of course, that is not the only factor, but it's an important factor. 

In other cases I would not argue as much because at least you are merging keywords with too many unnecessary variations – but in this post you are suggesting new keywords in most cases, and in several of them there is nothing to merge since you don't list any duplicates.

Feel free to wait for other feedback.

@Peter_pbn​ 

It's funny how I can never tell which keywords in my lists might prompt questions or objections.

It's true that I am suggesting a lot of new keywords here. But there are some valid reasons for that. First, I'm looking at this in a big picture sense involving multiple sets of keywords (all the keywords like this that can exist in up to three forms (e.g., "vomiting-woman," "woman-vomits," "woman-vomiting"). In many cases, perhaps most cases, there won't be existing keywords for one or two of the variations in these sets. But that shouldn't undermine the need to have some uniformity in these types of keywords in general.

Second, it is possible that some of the "teenage-girl-cries" type keywords don't currently exist because they have been manually edited out of existence over time. I can't prove this has happened with any of the "cries" keywords, but I have proven (in my first comment on this post) that it has indeed happened with the "woman-crying" keyword, as shown on this link. 

I suspect that a contributor (probably @bradley_kent) has "audited" these keywords over the years and merged them into the "crying-woman" form. But even @bradley_kent has weighed in on this thread in apparent support of merging these types of keywords into the "woman-cries" form (active voice, emphasis on the action rather than the person performing the action). 

One final point: regarding the "wearing" vs. "wears" keywords. You are correct that those are grammatically different, in that they include both a subject and an object (e.g., man-wears-underwear), while the "crying" type keywords only have a person and an action (no object). I agree with you that these keywords are overall different. But consider one way in which they are the same: even with the "wearing" vs. "wears" keywords, there is still a choice between keywords with verbs ending in "ing" or "s." That choice is also present in the "crying" type keywords. And the choice has clearly been made in favor of the "wears" form of the keywords for those keywords. That's all I'm saying.

As for whether I am responsible for the "wears" form being favored over the "wearing" form, I really don't think I am.  The community favored the "wears" form long before I made my first post involving any of these keywords. And @bradley_kent has furthered that along with manual editing.

You can seen that in this post from February 2022, where even before I posted my list, there were many, many more instances of "man-wears-underwear" than "man-wearing-underwear":

man-wearing-underwear (2 titles)  --> man-wears-underwear (818 titles)

And @bradley_kent has recently confirmed that he audits/edits the "wearing" keywords into the "wears" keywords, and has been doing this for years. (I support those edits from Mr. Kent.) 

Thanks for hearing me out here on the bigger picture. Just to recap, this "crying" list is only a small part of what I have in mind for these types of keywords, and it's true that this would result in the creation of many new keywords, but that is necessary to have a uniform approach. Plus, these "crying" keywords have definitely been manually edited over the years, which should be taken into account.   The bifurcation of duplicate keywords may be more apparent with other sets of keywords than the "crying" keywords, like the "vomiting," "moaning," "runnning," "sleeping," "yawning" keywords, etc.

The most important question is whether to approach all these types of keywords in a uniform manner, and if so, what is the best approach? Since this is just the first set of keywords that I have posted, I am indeed willing to wait for more feedback from others before referring to staff.

@Peter_pbn​

I just want to point out that this merger was recently approved by IMDb staff, and it's consistent with my proposal in this list:

barking-dog (982 titles)  -->  dog-barking (44 titles)   -->   dog-bark (10 titles)  -->   dog-barks (2 titles)

This was another case where a popular keyword was merged into a new form, as part of my overall approach of expressing keywords like this in terms of present-tense actions. 

I don't mean to suggest that staff have endorsed this approach -- my only intention is to provide another small piece of the bigger picture.

@adrian​ 

How would you describe the difference?

In compiling the list, I looked into this exact question, and concluded that if there is a difference, weeping involves tears. But how can one cry without tears? 

weep v., wept, weep·ing,
 n.
 –v.i.
1. to express grief, sorrow, or any overpowering emotion by shedding tears; shed tears; cry: to weep for joy; to weep with rage.
2. to let fall drops of water or other liquid; drip; leak: The old water tank was weeping at the seams.
3. to exude water or liquid, as soil, a rock, a plant stem, or a sore.
–v.t.
4. to weep for (someone or something); mourn with tears or other expression of sorrow: He wept his dead brother.
5. to shed (tears); pour forth in weeping: to weep tears of gratitude.
6. to let fall or give forth in drops: trees weeping an odorous gum.
7. to pass, bring, put, etc., to or into a specified condition with the shedding of tears (usually fol. by away, out, etc.): to weep one's eyes out; to weep oneself to sleep.
–n.
8. weeping, or a fit of weeping.
9. the exudation of water or liquid.

I would imagine the vast majority of the usage of both "crying" and "weeping" in these keywords involves tears. And even if not, my proposal is to merge "weeping" into "crying," not the other way around, so that would not result in any inaccuracies.

Weeping woman is a concept and in art and movie, it is almost about the indescrible grief of a mother after a child has died. It art you see it in "The Weeping Woman" by Pablo Picaso and in popular culture in the concept of "La Llorona" (which literally means The Weeping Woman).

I have no idea if this is how the keywords is used. It is more than just crying. It is inconsolable grief.

@adrian​ 

Fair enough. You convinced me. I will change the list.

When I googled "difference between weeping and crying" it was interesting to see all the different opinions on this question. Some people say they mean the same thing yet "weeping" is more old-fashioned, others say the focus with "weeping" is specifically on tears, others say the words mean the same thing and "weeping" is better to use so that one avoids confusing the word "crying" for "yelling," others say that "weeping" is more like "sobbing," others say that "weeping" means crying solemnly and silently, etc.

It's suprising that there is no universal interpretation of this question.

This discussion is a good read and shows some insight into the differences of opinion on "weeping" versus "crying":

English Forums: Weeping Vs. Crying?