Infinitive or Gerund?

[Bushwhacker]

As a title of a review. Which one would be better?

1 To love, to feign, to choose

2 Loving, Feigning, Choosing

Thank You

 

[bertietheblue]

As a title of a review. Which one would be better?

1 To love, to feign, to choose

2 Loving, Feigning, Choosing

Thank You

For 1, I'd sooner write 'To love. To feign. To choose' - it's more eye-catching, more dramatic. Or 'To love. To feign ... To choose' if the choice is to love or to feign (is 'feign' the correct word here? Could you possibly mean 'deceive'?).

Of course, it all depends on the subject matter. To be frank though, I don't think this a good heading - 'to choose' is very weak when set against loving and feigning. Any possibility of 'Love, Lies and [another powerful word or a play on words or something completely unexpected (ever heard of the film 'Sex, Lies and Videotape' - absolutely brilliant title for a film if you ask me!)]. Of course, if by 'feign' you don't mean to lie, then that's not possible. Why not play around with the heading some more and see what you can come up with?

 

[Bushwhacker]

For 1, I'd sooner write 'To love. To feign. To choose' - it's more eye-catching, more dramatic. Or 'To love. To feign ... To choose' if the choice is to love or to feign (is 'feign' the correct word here? Could you possibly mean 'deceive'?).

Of course, it all depends on the subject matter. To be frank though, I don't think this a good heading - 'to choose' is very weak when set against loving and feigning. Any possibility of 'Love, Lies and [another powerful word or a play on words or something completely unexpected (ever heard of the film 'Sex, Lies and Videotape' - absolutely brilliant title for a film if you ask me!)]. Of course, if by 'feign' you don't mean to lie, then that's not possible. Why not play around with the heading some more and see what you can come up with?

Thank You. The original, in Spanish, is:

Amar, fingir, escoger. I think the reviewer is imitating an Ang Lee's movie titled "Eat Drink Man Woman" which in Spain was titled "Comer, beber, amar" (Eating, Drinking, Loving)

Feign here is for simulating. Is it suitable?

 

[bertietheblue]

Thank You. The original, in Spanish, is:

Amar, fingir, escoger. I think the reviewer is imitating an Ang Lee's movie titled "Eat Drink Man Woman" which in Spain was titled "Comer, beber, amar" (Eating, Drinking, Loving)

Feign here is for simulating. Is it suitable?

Another brilliant film title - the structural harmony within and between the halves (inifinitive+infinitive+noun+noun) clashing with the contrasting sense of the halves and the harsh absence of all punctuation.

Sadly, completely lost in translation.

Anyway. It appears you're translating, in which case you're somewhat constrained. But if the Spanish writer is trying to parody the style of the Spanish title of Eat Drink Man Woman, shouldn't you, when translating back to English, try to parody the style of the original English title; otherwise, the imitation is lost and your heading may well just look odd? If so, I would write something that was structurally the same, so infinitive+inifinitive+noun+noun, if possible, though it's tricky because you might be adding something that wasn't in the original title. So it could be a case that either:

you simply translate the Spanish title in as good an English title as possible (you are faithful to the words but not the spirit of the title),

or

you interpret the title to suit its purpose (you are faithful to the spirit but not the words of the title).