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Unusual tags you use

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1Akiyama
Apr 23, 2007, 8:22am Top

What tags do you use, that most people don't?

I tag all my books with the year in which they were first published, which I think is unusual. This is because I think if enough people do this, then one could click on a year and see what was published in that year, which would be interesting.

I use the tag "sociodynamics" to cover any book that tries to explain how society in general works, be it history, economics, psychology or whatever. This is different from "social science" because many social science books limit themselves to quite specific things that can't be generalised about, or only attempt to describe things, not to explain them. I also use "cliodynamics" for history books that concentrate on why things happened and attempt to draw generalisable conclusions, rather than just describing what happened.

I use the tag "past future" for books that were written in the past about a future that is now the past. For example, 1984 was written in 1948, at which time 1984 was in the future. but in 2007 1984 is in the past and the world of the book is a "future that didn't happen". I also use "Nazi victory" for fiction set in worlds in which the Nazis won the war (there have been a surprisingly large number of books of this type published).

I use "available online" to indicate books that are available, for free, somewhere online. Not so much use to me, but if enough people use the tag it might become useful to browsers. And I use "out of print" to indicate books that have been out of print for a long time. I'm not sure why, but I'm sure it'll come in useful one day.

I think I probably "overtag" my books. About two thirds of my tags I've only used once or twice. I tag nonfiction with anything I can think of, and with fiction I also like to tag the setting, the era in was written in and the country it originated from. Am I a bit obsessive?

2reading_fox
Apr 23, 2007, 8:57am Top

"Am I a bit obsessive"

At 6.35 tags per book I wouldn't say particularly so. Although its higher than my 4.45, This number is going up though as I re-tag on my way thorugh re-reading a lot of my catalog.

I use Social comment - for nay book (often fiction) trying to make a point about how some group lives their lives, and how they could do so differently. Many more books still to gain that.

Unusual - all my books get a .xxx author tag and /yyyy series tag if applicable. I'm too lazy to spell the author name out in full each time.

3DaynaRT
Apr 23, 2007, 9:57am Top

Right now, I'm the only one using the tag FrugalReader. I put those on books I have up for trade at http://www.frugalreader.com

My tags per book used to be above 7, but I recently added 100 or so books that are not "properly" tagged because I expect them to vanish fairly quickly from my library via the various swap sites I use.

4collsers
Edited: Apr 23, 2007, 11:41am Top

My most unusual tag is probably "Questionable Literary Merit"--just a generic tag I use sometimes for chick lit and genre fiction that I really enjoyed, but whose shortcomings as good writing are clear to me. I need to tag more books with that one though.

I also have all my books tagged by decade. It's neat to see what different books were written around the same time.

I also have books that I am the sole owner of tagged "I have it and you don't," which was originated by Tim, and books that I share with one other person tagged "me and one other"

5ellen.w
Apr 30, 2007, 2:14pm Top

I'm the only one using these tags, which are some of my favorites:
girls dressed as boys
i am morbid
linguist character
people with wings

6readafew
Apr 30, 2007, 3:39pm Top

I noticed Sleuth Monk was unique to my library...

7vpfluke
Edited: Apr 30, 2007, 4:38pm Top

I am putting more tags on books. My average isn't yet huge, but I am ranked 6th for unique tags (4477). I am now trying to tag books in a way that I can really know what they are about, this sometimes means putting in chapter headings. If a book has a smallish anthology of stories I might put in the story names and/or authors. If the chapters have a hierarchal listing, I might put in the top headings in the book.

A sampling of my more unusal tags:

via transformativa
megaliths
T'ai Shang Tractate
equal temperament
Twin City Rapid Transit
riverrun

I am not necesarily the only one to use these.

Bob Campbell

8Aquila
Edited: Apr 30, 2007, 5:47pm Top

ellen w., I use the wider tag cross dressing where you use "girls dressed as boys"

vpfluke, I'm surprised to discover I don't use riverrun, since I tag series by their name (or another suitable keyword if there is no obvious name, or the name is too common and used for too many other things). I own Riverrun and Amorica by SP Somtow, so would have thought I'd have tagged them with riverrun, but I don't seem to have catalogued amorica yet.

Some of my odder tags:
aquatic ape theory
gender segregated society
single gender society
genre foundation
legal fanfiction
mary sue eyes
new viewpoint retelling
queerspawn

I also use "in #title#" for books that are mentioned in other books.

9fyrefly98
Edited: Apr 30, 2007, 7:32pm Top

My weirdest is probably "permeable boundaries between books and reality" and is so far only used on Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books and Cornelia Funke's Inkheart books.

10ryn_books
Apr 30, 2007, 9:56pm Top

I've started using ''main characters do not age" .

Useful for those series for any series where even the author has cheerfully admitted nope - they're not going to age.

ie, it's going to stay 1928 even at book 15, or Stephanie will stay early 30s even if a decade has passed;-)

11EncompassedRunner
Apr 30, 2007, 10:35pm Top

This message has been deleted by its author.

12ironrail
Apr 30, 2007, 11:31pm Top

This isn't an unusual tag so much as an unusual question about tagging. Does anyone know how to delete "empty" tags?

Specifically, I had several books tagged as "u.s. history/politics", and later I decided I absolutely need spaces in there, so I changed them all to "u.s. history / politics". However, my catalog still believes I had a "u.s. history/politics" floating around, and when I click on the tag it lists "1-0 of 0" available.

It's driving me crazy.

13pdxwoman
Apr 30, 2007, 11:57pm Top

When I first started, I used eleventy hundred tags on every book. Then I decided to only use tags I was likely to search on, so my tag average is down to 4.29 per book.

7> you must read Matthew Fox

Some of my more original tags (* = used by me only):

*501c3
amigurumi
*auto.bio
book digests
TESOL
TIPs
*fantahistorical

My date tags are all (I think) unique to me. I conjured up my date tags so they would sort in century order (2nd century followed by 3rd, not by 20th!)... so they are formatted like this... BCE 1stC, CE 01stC, etc.

14collsers
May 1, 2007, 2:41am Top

#13: To get my date tags in order, I used zeros: 02nd century, 03rd century...19th century, 20th century

15dchaikin
Edited: May 1, 2007, 9:43am Top

Akiyama, I've also started adding original-date-published, or something vaguely on that theme, to my tags. The date is always my first tag and it allows me sort books in the order they were written or published and anthologized. (I started doing this late and with a maleable philosophy so only a small percentage of my books actually have a date tag and the meaning of the dates are not consistent.)

I've been pondering trying to group books that are not subject related but seem to have the same feel. Of course that is very personal. One group of books I'm thinking of are these: The Lovely Bones, The Secret Life of Bees, Gilead, The Kite Runner, Middlesex, The Time traveler's Wife, The Blind Assassin, Bel Canto.

I've tagged them "Explores Aspects of Love." because they are all kind of suffused with some kind of overriding "love". Sounds a bit cheesey, unfortunately. Any other suggestions on a single common tag for them?

16fyrefly98
May 1, 2007, 10:58am Top

>15 dchaikin:

I've read most of those, and liked about half of what I've read, but....

In my mind, they're all "Oprah-esque". Not official Oprah books per se, but the same kind of feel. Probably not quite what you're going for, though. :)

17dchaikin
May 1, 2007, 12:10pm Top

That is just embarrassing!... but, it is kind of accurate. hmm....

Any other idea ideas?

18kageeh
May 2, 2007, 6:56am Top

Message 2: reading_fox -- What does the # mean on your tags?

Also, why do you tag your books with the author's name when you can use the author tags alone? Am I missing something?

As to #1, I now need to go through all my tags and enhance them. You have given me some great ideas!

19streamsong
May 2, 2007, 9:24am Top

One of my favorite is 'woo woo', meaning New Age spirituality that's a bit too far out for one's personal belief. I first encountered this when a counselor I was seeing recommended some of Wayne Dyer's books to me. The phrase he used--that Dyer is 'a well respected, woowoo, PhD counselor' tickled my funny bone so much that I had to make it one of mine.

20Bookmarque
May 2, 2007, 10:33am Top

while most of my tags are traditional and fairly self-explanatory, some are not.

lovcov is my favorite and it means that it's a cover I particularly like or really caught my eye when I first picked up the book.

another that is unique to me is probably 'ken' which denotes my husband's books.

21reading_fox
May 2, 2007, 11:14am Top

#18.

My tag '#' is a sort code. I view my catalog by tag. All my non-fiction books get # as their first tag- this sends them to the front, seperate from my fiction books.

I tag the author code, because I like to view by tags so that series come out in order. But I also want the catalog to be in author order, hence I need to add this tag. If LT could sort by two fields I wouldn't need to.
I use .xxx so that author tags don't appear in the middle of tag cloud of more interesting tags. Pure asthetics.It is the first tag (second for non-fiction). A series designator is third.

22kageeh
May 2, 2007, 12:11pm Top

This topic forced me to fix all the typos and "near-dupes" on my tag list -- when I should have been working, you know :). I do have some unique-to-me tags but few that are amusing. Examples:

Clown killer (about John Wayne Gacy)
From whence the movie/play came Mystic River
Loveys (security blankets --- really!)
Schlocky author (Danielle Steel
Twisted ending The Ax
Weird grammar The Deluxe Transitive Vampire

23gautherbelle
May 2, 2007, 12:33pm Top

Ironrail: This isn't an unusual tag so much as an unusual question about tagging. Does anyone know how to delete "empty" tags?

I've had this problem also. What I did was sort by tag and then find the "empty" tag and delete it. Then it goes away from my tag cloud.

I confess that my tags are not unusual. Sorry.

G'belle

24Aquila
May 2, 2007, 7:40pm Top

I just added the tag fpreg to some of my books, a variation on the far more common fandom term mpreg for male pregnancy (think the movie Junior with Arnie).

25fyrefly98
May 2, 2007, 9:25pm Top

So... fpreg is female pregnancy? Isn't that just... pregnancy?

26dchaikin
May 3, 2007, 1:28pm Top

Ok, I checked. Just for the record, none of books I mentioned in message 15 are actually on Operah's book club list. Somehow I feel relieved... :-D

27verbafacio
May 3, 2007, 3:45pm Top

Is there a page to check which tags are only used by you, or at least sorts by frequency? Or are all of you browsing your tags to look for unusual ones and then clicking through the tags page to see if other uses show up?

28ds_61_12
May 4, 2007, 8:22am Top

Don't know if this is an unusual one: bagger. The English translations would be junk. Those books I really regret buying are tagged with it.

29philosojerk
May 4, 2007, 9:43am Top

unusual ones from my collection:

free will and determinism
laissez-faire
nobel prize in economics
nobel prize in literature
pure genius (i use this one for my all-time favorite fiction)
religious ritual

also, not sure if other people do this, but i have a few tags like "leant to mom," "leant to vicky," etc. so i can keep track of which books people have borrowed.

30pdxwoman
May 5, 2007, 12:03am Top

29> philosojerk
I use "loaned:NAME" and (the dreaded) "loaned:gone". We also share a tag (same in meaning, similar in wording) -- I use "ritual" for religious ritual (of course, 259 other people also use "ritual" -- maybe I should be more specific, like you)

27> verbafacio
I just looked through my tags for ones I thought might be unusual and then checked to see if they were. I like the idea of a "you and only you" tag sort.

31gautherbelle
Edited: May 5, 2007, 10:29am Top

My best friend Ramsess and I are artists. A small part of what we do is silk screening t-shirts. I'm designing my tags to put on a tee shirt. I've asked the powers that be if the tags can be sorted randomly. If not I'll scan them into Word and put them in random order myself. I'm putting the tags on the front and the authors on the back.

32readafew
May 5, 2007, 8:57am Top

31 >You don't need to scan them, high light them with the mouse and copy then paste into Word...

33philosojerk
May 5, 2007, 10:02am Top

30> yeah, the dreaded "loaned:gone" sadly don't even make it into my catalog. that's not to say they don't exist, though. (and as an aside... borrowing and not returning a favorite book? friendships have ended over such atrocities.)

31> that's a fantastic idea! if you start doing them en masse, you'd probably have quite a customer base here.

34webecca
Edited: Sep 9, 2007, 8:43pm Top

My unusual tags include:
math quilt (31), mostly mathematical resources with visually interesting material that might make a good math quilt.
folk wisdom (24), includes "words to live by" books
loc costume closet (16), references in my costume closet, including theatrical costuming, sewing, and makeup books
hexagons (33), lots and lots of lovely hexagons
quilt pattern drafting (16), self explanatory
compact dictionary (5), tiny travel "pocket" dictionaries for French, Russian, Latin, English
sourdough starter (2), in my cookbooks; this number will rise (pun intended) as I enter my cookbooks.
cure for the common cold (1) in the everybody talks about it category
dangling participles (1) also in the everybody talks about it category

There are also words that are just interesting:
rumpledethumps (1), in a cookbook
Transylvanian carrots (1), in a cookbook
Festival of Lugnasa (1), in a cookbook
innumeracy (1), parallel to illiteracy (I'm not the only one using this one), and
periodromphilist (1), literally meaning someone who loves to walk around -- i.e., a tourist.

35Enraptured
Edited: Sep 9, 2007, 9:03am Top

Some of my unusual tags (a couple of other people use some of them, but not many):

stumbling in the dark (Where a major theme of the book is the main character or author thinking "ack I have no idea what I'm doing." The list of related tags for this one is a bit odd; "heartwarming" is right next to "interrogation.")

oppression memoir (What it sounds like - a memoir about living in a totalitarian society.)

fun fluff (Books that don't have much substance, but are fun to read.)

human extinction (Just like it sounds. Books where the extinction of the human race is imminent.)

nothing new (Nonfiction that was supposed to teach me something, but didn't, since I already knew what it was trying to teach me.)

36lquilter
Edited: Sep 9, 2007, 10:18am Top

my versions of some of the above tags:

* passing women (similar but not identical to girls dressed as boys, cross-dressing women, etc.)
* 9999 first publication (e.g., "1918 first publication") for year of first publication; I'm not totally happy with this format and am still experimenting with it but desperately want/need it.
* @loaned out (all my tags for my personal "collections" begin with an "@")
* @electronic copy (for copies that are downloaded)
* public domain work (if public domain in the US -- US-centric, I know! but we're about the most extreme, with just a couple of exceptions, so if it's public domain in the US it's reasonably likely to be PD elsewhere)
* Creative Commons work (if available thru Creative Commons license)

other tags:
* critical information studies (copyright reform, media criticism, etc.)
* 500 Great Books by Women (books listed in that awesome bibliography)
* censored (for books that were banned at some point or faced a censorship trial)
* single gender society
* gender role reversal
* gender separatism (societies with more than one gender but enforcing significant segregation)
* Buffy studies
* self-aggrandizing men

37antqueen
Sep 11, 2007, 5:11pm Top

I have a few 'gone' books tagged too, and a few 'lost' (or 'lost?' because I never remember which one I decided to use) :(

I tag 1st publication date by decade and put the actual year in the summary field. I'm not entirely happy with my format either.

A few unique ones... these are sporadically applied, but ah well.

- snarky endnotes, which is only on one book at the moment. The fellow was not happy with Dumas' historical accuracy. Quite amusing.
- folklore critters (as opposed to non-folklore-based magical critters).
- alien guardians, for those sf stories where humans are being guided by someone or other.
- alien watchers, for the non-protective variety of the above.
- various '* magic' tags, detailing the type(s) of magic used in fantasy books. Some wouldn't be as unique if I used a more common term (like 'necromancy' instead of 'death magic') but I like the consistency.

38lquilter
Sep 11, 2007, 7:17pm Top

I like "alien guardians"! I was just thinking that I wanted to come up with something to cover, for instance, Joan Slonczewski's The Wall Around Eden (link), and a couple of others I can't remember off the top of my head.

(... For some reason TWAE is coming up as a completely different work by Brian Aldiss. Grmp.)

39Heather19
Sep 12, 2007, 9:20pm Top

I have two tags, on many of my books, where I'm the only one that uses them. "favorites from the library" and "influenced my stories".

Heather

40Aquila
Sep 23, 2007, 4:56pm Top

I won't actually be using it, because I read Tanya Huff's A Confederation of Valor books from the library rather than owning them, but I actually headed to LibraryThing to see if anyone had tagged them with some variation of "pastel nymphomaniac space elves" but no one had. So sad.

41prosfilaes
Mar 1, 2008, 1:47pm Top

My personal favorite unusual tag is Elizabethan (II) literature. I haven't got around to putting the tag on all the books I've already tagged, but I find a cute way to label the post-WWII era. I've labeled my books 18th century literature, 19th century literature, 20th century literature, etc. but the break between 20th century literature and 21st century literature was just annoying and unhelpful. I know all the century breaks are arbitrary, but for a reader of modern literature, this one is especially annoying.

36; I'm not sure I'd agree that the public domain in the US is generally more restrictive. The US public domain basically consists of material published prior to 1923 or more than 95 years ago, where as EU public domain consists of material by authors who died 70 years ago. That means that the works of George Bernard Shaw (whose works published 1886-1922 are public domain in the US) will be in copyright until 2010 and the works of Agatha Christie (whose first couple novels are PD in the US) will be copyright until 2046. There's quite a bit of overlap either way.

42devenish
Mar 1, 2008, 3:11pm Top

I use one called 'Croft' as in the Stevie Smith poem-

Aloft,
In the loft,
Sits Croft;
He is soft.

for (needless to say) those books stored in the attic.

43Nickelini
Apr 25, 2008, 3:33pm Top

Just found this thread, and wow are you all interesting! I haven't put nearly that much thought into my tags. One that I have though that I think is unique is "Fabrizio", which is my husband's name. I collect books that have characters with his name, which is fairly unusual in North America.

44k8_not_kate
Apr 26, 2008, 12:56pm Top

What a great thread! I would have to say my most unusual and favorite tag is simply "wtf." I use this for any novel that I finish and still don't understand what happened. Sometimes it's negative (The Stranger, Day of the Locust), sometimes it's positive because I think you were meant to walk away not quite knowing what you read (Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass).

45vpfluke
Apr 26, 2008, 3:55pm Top

Does wtf mean 'wafting through fantasy'? When I did a seach on this tag (it is used by 52 people), I thought maybe for one person it means 'wigs trap face'.

46kaelirenee
May 5, 2008, 9:43am Top

WTF means what the f-? As in what just happened? There's actually a pretty good book about the war in Iraq that I was flipping through at B&N called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (WTF). Makes sense to use as a personal tag for some fiction I've read, too.

I guess my unusual tags are West (which means at the West library-where I work) or IPL (Irving Public Library), and tags for people or books the book is about, like Baba Yaga, or the Hypnerotomachia-which can look pretty odd if you're browsing through a tag cloud. I also have ones like LC change and get dewey for ones that need those particular call numbers-I tend to change the given LC call number frequently for my own books.

47DeusExLibris
May 18, 2008, 3:20pm Top

I tag all my religion and spirituality books "Religion & Spirituality Library," as well as all my philosophy books (currently only a handful) "Philosophy Library."

48vpfluke
May 18, 2008, 4:45pm Top

#47

I guess you must be waiting for however "collections" may be set up in LT. When I clicked at your profile the tag for "Religion & Spirituality Library", nothing would come up in the catalog view. I wonder if that has something to do with the ampersand. Or it could be my older Safari browser. I went to your tag cloud, and it didn't work from there either. But I did notice that there is a separate tag where Spirituality is spelled with a lower case S, ditto for Library. Then I went to your catalog, and clicking on a tag, I was able to get all your books under the 'Religion & Spirituality Library' tag.

49malinablue
May 19, 2008, 11:27am Top

i have the same problem. I had a few mistakes in my tags, went in and fixed them, but the old tags are still in my cloud. Which kind of drives me crazy. They used to update immediately upon being fixed, but now they disappear from the tags page, but remain as empty categories in the tag cloud.
Cindy

50augustdreams
Jul 16, 2008, 11:58pm Top

Hi! I just joined and am interested in getting my tags "right." I just noticed how to tell if I am the only one using a particular tag. I think I am the only one using "elderly female protagonist" which I use for all my Mrs. Pollifax series. I use "overweight protagonist" for No. 1 Ladies Detective series, and I think for Nero Wolfe.
This will be fun!

51augustdreams
Jul 17, 2008, 12:10am Top

Also I noticed that "Literature mentoring" which I used for the 500 Books written by Women Authors--or a similarly worded title, is a lone tag in LT as well. I may have lots of others---I need to pay more attention to these tags!

52augustdreams
Jul 17, 2008, 12:18am Top

OK-I looked at my tags, and saw my "gender bending" for Ahab's Wife. No one else who had used "gender bending" had used it for this novel. That made me think about it harder, and I realized that "cross-dressing" was the issue that ought to be tagged, as she dressed as a boy to blend into the whaling ship crew--it wasn't really a gender bending issue at all--merely a cross-dressing issue! I see how this can refine my tagging, by seeing how others used the same tags!

53sarahemmm
Jul 17, 2008, 4:06am Top

I just went to look at your tags. What is their purpose, for you? I ask because you have a lot of 'long' tags. If you are just search for a book containing specific themes, would you not find them more easily if you break up these tags into their separate elements?

For example, "19th century British Literature" and "19th century Russian Literature" are each attached to one book. Would not you (and others) find these books more easily if you tagged "19th century", "British", "Russian", "literature", etc?

That way, you can find all your 19thC books easily, or do a deeper search for 19thC and Russian.

54trollsdotter
Jul 17, 2008, 8:49am Top

>50 augustdreams:

I believe I will use your "elderly female protagonist" because the words made me immediately think of Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon. They must be destined to go together.

I have also "borrowed" another tag from user swanjun: "gender hijinx." I think it goes well with the comedy of errors types of gender switching (physically or cosmetically) that are often used in manga.

55prosfilaes
Jul 17, 2008, 9:10am Top

53> Personally, I do tag 19th century literature and Russian literature separately, but tagging something 19th century can mean the book was written in the 19th century or that it's about or set in the 19th century. That's not helpful.

56vpfluke
Jul 17, 2008, 4:53pm Top

With a huge number of tags, I couldn't remember how I used "19th century". So, I took a look, and can see that I use that tag by itself, and don't string it out. I usually tag a book as fiction or novel, seldom using the word literature. I will tag books as English or Russian, but I am incosistenent on this. One can then do a tagmash search to to narrow your search down.

With obscure volumes in my library, I occasionally put in pertinent chapter names, so that when I look at my listing, I have a better idea of what is really in the book, without trying to find it someplace on my bookshelves. In this case I do use longer tags.

57Aquila
Jul 24, 2008, 10:54pm Top

Coolest tag I've seen today:
means: defenestration

It's part of a set of course, used for tagging mysteries, and it made me smile.

58oregonobsessionz
Jul 25, 2008, 1:31am Top

I was surprised to see how many unique tags I have.
annoying narrative - used once for Dear Jane: The Two Hundred Twenty-Five Patterns from the 1863 Jane A. Stickle Quilt
Chilkoot, for books that discuss the Chilkoot Pass. I can’t believe no one else is using this one!
fairs and exhibitions
old (1800-1899)
old (1900-1925)
old (1926-1950
quilt rescue
X-C ski
~wrong ISBN - for books where the correct cover was attached to the wrong ISBN.

Some are used by only a few others:
Donner - usually used in connection with the Donner party, but one member has used this for Narratives of Islamic Origins.
downward mobility
free silver
Inside Passage
Iroquois Theater
Mount St. Helens
Peshtigo
Stevens Pass

And some odd ones that I really like:
bogus
cryptozoology
unreadable - I used this for Red Storm Rising; interesting to see where others used it.

59bkhl
Jul 25, 2008, 5:27am Top

Keep "overtagging". Overall I think it can only make a folksonomy database like this richer and more useful. I'm bad at this myself. I seem to have some sort of built-in censor keeping me from putting in those weird one-time tags, though using those sort of tags doesn't actually hurt, and can only be helpful that time someone happens to want to look up the "nazis in space" tag.

I couple of my friends also puts in Swedish (SAB) library codes, with tags like "sab:Hce", which is something I should also do, though I would rather see the LT database expanded to support more library code systems (possibly via common knowledge).

60Heather19
Jul 26, 2008, 2:48am Top

59: Nazis in space!! Omg that's hilarious... I wonder if there *are* any books like that out there?

61Amtep
Jul 26, 2008, 5:11am Top

#60: I don't know any with the full eagle-and-swastika works, but I wouldn't mind giving Iron Sunrise that tag. I don't want to say more because I don't want to spoil anything.

62inkdrinker
Jul 26, 2008, 7:03am Top

"crummypb"

That's the tag I use for pocket sized paperbacks. I use it to distinguish those from "pb" which I use for larger (slightly nicer) paperbacks.

63AsYouKnow_Bob
Edited: Jul 26, 2008, 9:30pm Top

#60 Nazis in space!! Omg that's hilarious... I wonder if there *are* any books like that out there?

Well, Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo, for one....

64Jim53
Jul 26, 2008, 9:52pm Top

I have taken literature courses at several universities. I have tagged books that I studied at one of these universities with the initials of the school: CUA, NCSU, UNCW, etc.

65missylc
Jul 27, 2008, 4:15pm Top

I've decided to start using "sampled" for books that I've read only parts of (cookbooks, reference books, etc.) -- only one other user has that one.

I guess my most unique/original tag is "in over their heads," which was inspired by a Sweet Valley High book (yes, I admit to reading them), but I've realized applies to so many others.

My amusing (to me) tag is "toaster oven" referring to a cookbook that I have. A couple other folks have it too, for the same reason.

66Helcura
Aug 6, 2008, 6:41pm Top

My oddest one is "comfort books" which is for those books I read when I've had a really bad day and just want to curl up in a corner and cry.

67timepiece
Oct 20, 2008, 12:06pm Top

I used to be almost the only one using snowed in, but I see there are a few of us now. I am by far the biggest user of vices.

Anti-feminist only has 3 books and 2 users, and only two of us are tagging the English Men of Letters series, as well.

68bnielsen
Oct 26, 2008, 11:25am Top

I've been wondering about how to indicate narrator style: I.e. I'm reading Duma Key these days and King uses a diary like story telling like: This day started with a trip to the village but ended badly. I.e. the narrator tells us hints about things that are about to happen but most of the story is told as it happens. But I don't know which tags to use. Surely someone has done this already, so could someone please point me in the right direction?

69Dragonfly
Oct 26, 2008, 12:31pm Top

That's an interesting idea for date tags. I'm just using 1700s, 1800s, etc. and then a tag for a specific date or decade, e..g 1760s. So this leaves 1700-1709 up in the air. Don't know that I want to go back and redo them all though. I do use the tags -- it helps me find material about a period that's somewhat buried.
One of my friends pointed out that he and I were the only people with the tag "stoner rock". Perhaps taggers are like botanists: there are lumpers and there are splitters.

70wimble
Oct 27, 2008, 5:47am Top

> 68

As a start, I'd be inclined to use: "first person" and "foreshadowing" (although that doesn't cover the "ended badly" part). I've got no idea whether those match up with anybody else's tags though. But then, they don't have to :)

71bnielsen
Oct 27, 2008, 5:20pm Top

Thanks. Googling found me this:
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Literary-technique
I'll go looking for LT'ers who tag books with some of these terms.
Maybe I'll just use the terms in reviews rather than as tags.

72prosfilaes
Edited: May 31, 2009, 7:50pm Top

I just got to tag a book with "included night light". I'm almost sad I can't tag more books like that.

73keristars
Oct 4, 2009, 8:02pm Top

Ah, since this group was pointed out over on a Site Talk thread just now, I'm necroing an old thread, but I've been tickled by this particular tag that I saw a while back and have used ever since.

Someone had put a summary into the tag box while editing info from the catalogue, I imagine, so the sentences were chopped up between the commas. Most of it came out as nonsense, except for the opening phrase for the first time in her life.

I think that phrase says a lot about a book's plot, though I'm very particular about when I use it - I feel like there's a tongue-in-cheek sort of sniggering going on when I add that tag to the book. Villette gets it, but not Jane Eyre, for example. And everyone gets to be "her", no matter the gender, because it's simpler that way.

Unfortunately, I'm very haphazard about filling in tags, so not all my books that deserve "for the first time in her life" have it yet, and a lot of other books only have the very basic tags for genre, setting, and when it was published.

74amarie
Oct 7, 2009, 8:01pm Top

There are thirteen of us using 'generational saga' which to me refers to those sprawling stories usually about a family--perhaps in one location--over many, well, generations. By their very nature, usually involves some history/historical fiction. I think I first used the term for Evergreen by Belva Plain (and borrowed from my grandmother as a teenager, about when I also read all my mom's Anne Tyler books :)

I also have a shocking amount of Star Wars-related books, probably because I wanted to own those as opposed to borrowing from the library. Instead of terminology like "classic trilogy" or "prequels" I opted to tag books based on publisher-provided eras. My selective interest in the various spin-offs shows in how me and only nine other people are currently using "rise of the empire era," whereas more people are found for "new republic era" since more books were published. And I am the only one using "era of rebellion."

75countrylife
Nov 23, 2009, 12:54pm Top

Oh, I like that "generational saga"! Since its applicable to a book I just finished - In the Fall by Jeffrey Lent - I guess that makes me the fourteenth member to use it. And now that its in my tag-scape, I can think of other books to stick it on.

My unusual tag probably shouldn't be a tag at all, but should be put in comments. But, its so much easier to make it a tag as I'm quickly adding a book. For instance, Her Fearful Symmetry, which I just added to my wishlist, with the tag 'boLT rev fyrefly98' (because of LT review), or the variations of boLT rec (recommendation) or boTracy (my sister)... Now, if they were to implement that field which has been much talked about, I might even open up the edit page to enter it where it 'belongs', but right now - this is just so easy.

76duvee
Mar 19, 2010, 7:20am Top

A friend of mine (majoring in Archaeology) mentioned the term 'ritual defleshing' in conversation, so now I have three books tagged with that phrase: http://www.librarything.com/tag/ritual+defleshing

77BarkingMatt
Mar 19, 2010, 7:30am Top

I've recently added the tag "translated into dead language" http://www.librarything.com/tag/translated+into+dead+language (connection to the books is apparently still somewhere in cache)

78stortemelk
Mar 19, 2010, 7:44am Top

>77 BarkingMatt: Just put that one on my copy of Asterix et cleopatra, although I usually do my tagging in Dutch. Maybe I will translate and then propose to combine...

79GirlMisanthrope
Mar 20, 2010, 11:50pm Top

My humble submissions:

Baby Goth: children's books with monsters, skeletons, zombies

Pee Your Pants Funny:

Inner Kid: children's picture books

Never Judge a Book by It's Movie: because the book is usually better than the movie!

Down The Rabbit Hole: versions of "Alice in Wonderland", books about Alice Liddell, and stories inspired by Alice in Wonderland

80prosfilaes
Mar 21, 2010, 12:11am Top

#77: I use modern translation into ancient languages http://www.librarything.com/tag/modern+translation+into+ancient+languages for roughly the same thing.

81BarkingMatt
Mar 23, 2010, 4:23pm Top

Came across: "homo homini lupus" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_homini_lupus just in case). Just had to implement it for some of my books.

82prosfilaes
Jun 15, 2010, 9:43pm Top

How about thirty pieces of silver? (http://www.librarything.com/tag/thirty+pieces+of+silver )? I've got a couple books that have the thirty pieces of silver given to Judas as part of the story, either literally or symbolically.

83Body_Count
Edited: Jun 16, 2010, 7:43pm Top

I use the tag "not" if the main point of the book is that something isn't or doesn't. I started doing that after I tagged A History of Celibacy with "sex", and then it occurred to me that it's about sex by not being about sex.

Also I use the tag "no monkeys" if you have every right to expect monkeys but there aren't any.

84macsbrains
Jun 16, 2010, 11:50pm Top

>83 Body_Count: That "no monkeys" tag is awesome and worthy of pilfering.

85jdthloue
Jun 29, 2010, 12:00pm Top

I tag my books according to where i buy/swap/get them. People have told me this is "odd"..but it saves time and headaches (not to mention overspending) when, before I go shopping, i can check my Library to see if I already own a book....and, people tell me it's an odd way pf doing business!

86enrique_molinero
Edited: Jun 29, 2010, 12:51pm Top

>83 Body_Count:

I tagged To Kill a Mockingbird with does not instruct how to kill mockingbirds for that very same reason.

~~~

The only unusual tag that I use for more than one work is for "BAMF protagonist" to note which books have a protagonist who is indeed a badass motherfucker.

87AsYouKnow_Bob
Edited: Jun 29, 2010, 7:49pm Top

#86 > I tagged To Kill a Mockingbird with does not instruct how to kill mockingbirds for that very same reason.

Similarly, I tagged Special Topics in Calamity Physics as false advertising.

88lorax
Jun 29, 2010, 8:10pm Top

Prosfilaes 82, if that's an interest of yours, you should read Blaylock's The Last Coin.

89lorax
Jun 29, 2010, 8:13pm Top

87>

Similarly, I tagged Special Topics in Calamity Physics as false advertising.

I like that! I've tagged it "fiction despite the title", in the hopes that other people would pick it up, not only for that book but for things like A Guide to the Birds of East Africa (which I've seen misfiled in the ornithology section at more than one book sale), but sadly nobody else appears to have made use of it.

90Nickelini
Jun 29, 2010, 8:18pm Top

I really like both "false advertising" and "fiction despite the title" and will use them both. I have used sort of the opposite of the later--I tagged the memoir Under the Tuscan Sun as "fantasy." Having spent enough time in Italy to know better, and having relatives and friends that live there, I know that her story cannot be close to true. I've used the fantasy tag on similar travel/move-to-a-exotic-country memoirs as well.

91rgurskey
Nov 2, 2010, 3:27pm Top

This isn't mine but I like it.

pee your pants funny

92joiedelivre
Nov 2, 2010, 4:32pm Top

I am so stealing the "Translated into a dead language" tag! Awesome!

93lquilter
Dec 14, 2010, 10:30am Top

read one billion times to my toddler -- i use it and nobody else does!

94sarahemmm
Dec 14, 2010, 11:23am Top

So will you amend that to 'read one billiion and one times to my toddler' tomorrow? ;)

95macsbrains
Dec 14, 2010, 12:58pm Top

>93 lquilter: I love that! My version of that tag would be "read to me one billion times as a toddler - and then they hid it :("

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