Talk:All You Zombies

message: OK, what's the official version of the title of this story? 
Is it:
* "All You Zombies"
* "All You Zombies..."
* "-All You Zombies-"
* "All You Zombies-"
* "All You Zombies-
or what? Certainly, including the double quotes in the article title goes against the Wikipedia manual of Style (although double quotes are used around short story titles within articles) -- unless, of course, there's some special reason for including them. -- The Anome 23:12, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
:They are part of the title.  Same thing as Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft"  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Captain Wacky (talk • contribs).
:In my copy of The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag it's given variously as 
* "All You Zombies"
* "-All You Zombies-"
It was originally published in F&SF in 1959, but I know what issue. Lefty 01:52, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)
:Err -- "don't know", I mean.  Lefty 04:53, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)
The title should carry an em dash at the end, all enclosed by single quotation marks (to denote that it's an excerpt from the narrator's final speech), the whole enclosed by double quotation marks (as usual for for short story titles): 
" 'All You Zombies—' "
This is how it appears in the 1963 anthology The Worlds of Science Fiction, edited by Robert Mills. It also appears in this form in Alexei Panshin's Heinlein in Dimension (1968); see Panshin's own posting of this book at www.enter.net/~torve/critics/Dimension/hd04-1.html. It would be nice if all Wikipedia mentions of this title (including those not editable by users) were switched to this form.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.151.217.26 (talk) 19:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I own a copy of _The Magazine of Fantasy And Science Fiction_ for March of 1959.  The title is in double quotes with one em-dash as:  "All You Zombies-"  DonPMitchell (talk) 22:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Title?

message: The page moved from "—All You Zombies—" to "All You Zombies—", but the article itself still includes both the beginning and ending mdashes.  I don't know which punctuation is correct, but whichever one it is, we should be consistent between the name of the page and the text in the page.
--Psiphiorg 20:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What the hell? If the consensus is for "—All You Zombies—", then the article belongs there! "All You Zombies—" doesn't seem to be right, and I can't find any consensus on that one (without the first dash)... I tried moving, but the other page exists. ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 16:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page moved but content unchanged? 

message: So what is the official title?
My copy of The Best of Robert Heinlein 1947-1959 lists it in the table of contents as All You Zombies (no quotes, no dashes), but the first page of the story shows it as "--All You Zombies--".
My copy of The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathon Hoag lists it in the table of contents as "All You Zombies" (with quotes, but no dashes), but the first page of the story shows it as "--All You Zombies--".
James Gifford's Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion gives the title as "All You Zombies--".
In a letter to Lurton Blassingame excerpted on page 156 of Grumbles From The Grave, Heinlein refers to it as "All You Zombies" (in quotes, no dashes).  (As casual correspondence, though, I'm not sure that this reference counts.)
How did we settle on "All You Zombies--"? -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs) 05:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The best reference sources on the net appear to show that the title in the original magazine used the mdash style at the end & not the begining of the title (ie. "All You Zombies--"). The article is now consistant to that form. There is inconsistency of subsequent use - but the "first edition" is the one to quote. If anyone has access to that edition of the magazine they could check for us. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 12:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  As I just added to the article itself, the odd form of the title is not inconsequential. It is a deliberate author choice to make the textual form of the story follow the content form of the protagonist's life.  The title is a quotation -- from the story itself, from nowhere else. --Rpresser 19:53, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

text:  I think it should appear on wikipedia the same way it appears in the table of contents or the story page in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mar 1959 - unless there is some other standard that is followed here. Rpresser's views are interesting, but not supported (currently) by any evidence. Suppafly (talk) 22:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The title (yet again) 

message: "Here Heinlein is indulging in yet another of his trademark themes, that of solipsism."  This is not what I would call "neutral" wording.  I have rephrased it--replacing "indulging in yet another" with "revisiting one"--to remove the pejorative tone.  Thanks.   75.73.21.101 15:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutral Wording? 

message: I think that we should use the term that is used in the actual story.  Will someone look this up in the story and make the change? — Val42 17:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Neither is actually used in the story.  The idea is explained to the narrator by a doctor in a couple sentences.  212.190.219.65 13:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then, for explanation in this article, we should use the wording used in the story.  Two sentences should be "fair use". — Val42 21:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hermaphrodite vs. intersex

message: Is Jane the first intersex character to appear in american fiction? There are some earlier charecters who have been both man and woman like Woolfe's Orlando, but they undergo a magical transformation and are not biologically interesexed.Litch (talk) 20:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: First intersex character?

message: I know one could have both sets of organs, but would the gametes or chromosomes or whatever in the testes and ova work out properly?  I'm sure there are some worms and frogs and such that could get this thing done, but could a human?  I mean, assume the existence of a functioning time machine, has there ever been a human that could pull this caper off?
:I think one could be her clones mother or impregnate herself, might be even posible now for someone with "right" genes. The clone option is realy the easier one, just have your clone as your child and go back in time to have yourself cloned... Real issue is causality, time and fact person would come from nothing or had always existed, things would get quite messy... --84.249.120.84 (talk) 23:08, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's conceivable. (So to speak.) Testes and ovaries develop from the same fetal tissue, so it would require the individual to have either intersex gonads which could respond to the corresponding hormones to produce either sperm or ova (this is how hermaphroditic species do it) or to have one of each type, which would also depend on the corresponding hormones being present to work. You'd also need some remarkable reconstructive surgery in between.  Assuming that viable gametes were formed, the process of the sperm fertilizing the ovum and the chromosomes pairing up would proceed as usual, and the offspring would certainly end up with the same genes as "both" parents. Since the hormones needed to produce sperm and those needed to produce ova act at cross purposes, a body can't produce both at once, thus requiring a time machine (as well as advanced medical technology). –Jason A. Quest (talk) 19:30, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It's science fiction. Trankuility (talk) 04:55, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that's mentioned in the lede. Thanks. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 12:21, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

text: Please note that this is not a blog or forum or Q&A site, it's a page for improving the content of articles, so such questions don't belong here. That said ... development is determined by hormones, not by the mere presence or absence of X or Y chromosomes, so yes this is possible. -- Jibal (talk) 22:38, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Medical professional here. You are all confusing several things here, but since this is not a forum I will not elaborate. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:D4AA:E625:C5B5:E2D4 (talk) 16:05, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it medically possible? 

message: I'm surprised it's not mentioned anywhere, but there was a popular song by the Hooters from the '80s by the same name (notwithstanding the punctuation issues), described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Zombies_(song). Should that not be included under Outside References? I'd add it myself, but I'm not 100% certain the song is referencing the short story - certainly the lyrics seem to have no relation.
75.171.28.157 (talk) 17:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: At the top of the article, you'll see, "For the song by The Hooters, see All You Zombies (song)." Unless there is a reliable source connecting the two topics, that's the only connection we have. - SummerPhD (talk) 02:27, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

text: "Should that not be included under Outside References?" -- no, of course not. "I'd add it myself, but I'm not 100% certain the song is referencing the short story - certainly the lyrics seem to have no relation" -- and that's why. To justify adding it as a reference, you would need a reliable source stating that the song refers to the story. -- Jibal (talk) 22:42, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Hooter's Song?

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
*Oppose - A straight Google search for "All You Zombies" turns up a fairly even mix of the short story and the song. A Google news search, not surprisingly, is all about the song. Google scholar, of course, is all about the short story. What the "primary topic" is seems to be a function of who is looking. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:13, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: Please see the RM discussion at Talk:'—And He Built a Crooked House—'#Requested move 7 December 2023. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:02, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Related RM discussion

message: has made repeated good-faith but incorrect edits to the formatting and punctuation of the title of the story in one section of this article. They should have come to the talk page after the first revert, per WP:BRD, but better late than never. Please read the explanatory notes on the article and on this page before making any more edits to the title in the article. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:55, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch on the invisible characters. Those often crop up due to copy/paste problems. I have replaced them with proper templates. As for the confusing title, the single quotation marks and the dash are part of the title as originally published, although the title is referred to in slightly different form in other places. I have one of the books on my shelf. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:52, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for changing that. My Heinlein collection is near complete (I recently found an online copy of "The Year of the Jackpot"). If you're thinking of buying the biography that I mentioned: don(t, it's not worth the effort... --Randykitty (talk) 17:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the biography tip. He wrote enough about himself that I think a bio may be superfluous; Tramp Royale is good fun. Ditto on my Heinlein collection; I'm only missing Take Back Your Government and Variable Star on my shelf of books. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:29, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disruptive title-related edits