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Monday, March 13th, 2017 9:31 AM

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"One's-self" keywords

There are some keywords which include the phrase "one's-self", such as:

looking-at-one's-self-in-a-mirror (708 titles)
talking-to-one's-self-in-a-mirror (106 titles)
talking-to-one's-self (81 titles)

There seems to be little justification for this spelling, so isn't "oneself" better?

There is also this one, what do you think this means?

crossing-one's-self (43 titles)

"The two-word phrase one’s self is only justifiable when self is used in a spiritual, philosophical, or psychological sense. In all other cases, one’s self can be replaced with the pronoun oneself."
-- http://grammarist.com/spelling/oneself-ones-self/

172 Messages

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2.6K Points

7 years ago

Hi Peter,

Thank you for pointing this out.

I have taken a look into this and made the appropriate changes to these keywords. Please allow up to 48 hours for the changes to reflect live on the site.

Thanks,

Bex

1.3K Messages

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23.1K Points

The problem is: the incorrect keywords keep reappearing.  Contributors who submit these incorrect keywords should be contacted, and staffers who accept these incorrect keywords should be notified.  It seems like only one or two contributors keep submitting these incorrect keywords.

(edited)

1.3K Messages

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23.1K Points

4 years ago

This was debated years ago, and the decision was that the keyword (and related keywords) should be "looking-at-oneself-in-a-mirror." If I remember correctly, it came down to correct grammas.  The decision was made, but it has not been uniformly enforced.

If possible, check IMDb archives.

2.7K Messages

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47K Points

2 years ago

I had to look up the term "crossing oneself." I learned that it means when one uses their hand to make the sign of the cross across their own body.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_of_the_cross

Because staff never set these keywords up for auto-conversion, they were recreated and continue to be used.

I also get the sense that one or more contributors have continued to do manual edits of these keywords over the past couple years, probably well-intentioned, but only giving the false sense of comfort that these keywords are not problematic given the deceptively low numbers.

crossing-oneself (91 titles)

crossing-one's-self (18 titles)

looking-at-oneself-in-a-mirror (3347 titles)

looking-at-one's-self-in-a-mirror (8 titles)

looking-at-ones-self-in-a-mirror (4 titles)

talking-to-oneself (763 titles)

talking-to-one's-self (17 titles)

(edited)