Opposite of subplot... superplot?

Are you talking about a story arc?

yeah that's a story arc.

I quite like uberplot. Sounds like something from a James Bond film.

seun said:

I quite like uberplot. Sounds like something from a James Bond film.

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Wouldn't that be Plotty Galore?

Plot

javili said:

I can't believe I've never tried to come up with a word for this before. What would you call an "uberplot" that runs across several books? You see it a lot...the Voldemort thing overriding all the individual Harry Potter plots, for instance.

But what would you call it?

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Plot. Everything else is a subplot.

um . . . What?

Just so you know, that's Ueberplot, since the word ueber has an umlaut on the first u. German major to the rescue!

Nonsense. It's Überplot. From über.

(Yes you spell ü 'ue' if you can't make an 'ü'.)

Willowmound said:

Nonsense. It's Überplot. From über.

(Yes you spell ü 'ue' if you can't make an 'ü'.)

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That was my point, which is why I mentioned the umlaut.

I know. I was just showing off my ü.

ueber looks kind of ridiculous...I'll be sure to include the umlaut from now on for the nicer looking über.

I'd say in a series, the whole series is the story arc, the plot of each book is the plot, and then there are subplots for each book. Though, I guess there are subplots between books, too. Maybe those can be the superplots. Story arc can be changed to überplot.

überplot -> superplot -> plot -> subplot

I like it.

By the way, umlaut doesn't mean the dots. It's got to do with how a vowel mutates depending on tense, or how it has mutated historically. It's complicated.

Ü is also not pronounced like U. Neither the English pronunciation nor the German. The word isn't "uber". It's more like "yber" (but not quite "eeber").

...And on topic, I like superplot -> plot -> subplot.

No, I don't like überplot.

But oober sounds so much cooler than eeber when you say it.

Eeber sounds like one of my cousins could be named that...

Not to my ears.

It's clunky, ugly, and about as worldly as "mercy bookoo".

Because it's not eeber. It's über. You have to say it like a German.

Go here: http://www.utils.ex.ac.uk/german/pronounce/

Click the top sound icon and the man will speak a lot of words featuring ü. Listen carefully; one of them is über.

javili said:

OK, now I know that it is not true. You can't say that "Godfather" or any one "Harry Potter" book only has a "subplot" just because there is a larger arc involved in other books.

See...I just used that "arc" thing in a knowing post of my own. The internet is just GREAT for know-it-alls.

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Yeah, I just use plot and subplot. And then there's the story arc, which carries the whole series.

Willowmound said:

Not to my ears.

It's clunky, ugly, and about as worldly as "mercy bookoo".

Because it's not eeber. It's über. You have to say it like a German.

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Is it über like you-ber? Kind of? Like ewe-ber?

I admit...I sometimes say oo-ber. It sounds so much more...über, that way

And I still like überplot.

Listen for yourself: http://www.utils.ex.ac.uk/german/pronounce/

There is no equivalent sound in English. Which is why it's hard to describe.

In the topmost audio example, über is the fourth word the guy says.

Willowmound said:

By the way, umlaut doesn't mean the dots. It's got to do with how a vowel mutates depending on tense, or how it has mutated historically. It's complicated.

Ü is also not pronounced like U. Neither the English pronunciation nor the German. The word isn't "uber". It's more like "yber" (but not quite "eeber").

Click to expand...

...and "Überplot" would have to be capitalised...

Miss Smartypants

But do German capitalisation rules (capitalise all nouns) apply when writing English? The word is German, yes, but the sentence is English. Shouldn't English grammar and rules be followed throughout?

If no, then surely all Frenchmen's surnames must be ALL CAPS at all times. But we don't do that, do we?

Is plot a German word? If not then überplot isn't really German either.

And why would we capitalize Frenchmen's surnames?

The French do it all the time.