Talk:Hold onto Me

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. WP:COMMONNAME is inapposite here, so votes based on that were discarded, and "official name" is just not a part of the article title, so votes based on that were discarded as well. Whether MOS:5 applies ends up being split 3–3 with strong arguments on both sides, so I think that makes this a "no consensus" close. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 00:44, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Hold onto Me → Hold Onto MeHold Onto Me – Correct capitalization of the official title of the 2026 film. JennaRow (talk) 08:51, 6 March 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 18:15, 13 March 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:02, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose per MOS:5. "Onto" is a preposition consisting of less than five letters. Nardog (talk) 08:50, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

  It’s the official title of the film. Written this way in all press materials. ~2026-14954-11 (talk) 09:10, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

  Wikipedia doesn't automatically go by whatever is "official". Nor does any reputable publication. If they did it would mean any filmmaker or distributor could use ALL CAPS or MiXeD cAsE in an attempt to stand out on pages. Nardog (talk) 10:40, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks for the note. In this case the film is consistently styled as “Hold Onto Me” in reliable sources and official listings (including festival materials, press coverage, and databases such as IMDb).

  Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:TITLE, article titles generally follow the name most commonly used in reliable sources. When a creative work has a consistent stylization used in the press and by major databases, Wikipedia typically follows that usage rather than re-styling it purely according to MOS capitalization rules.

  If needed I’m happy to add citations demonstrating the consistent usage of “Hold Onto Me” in coverage and festival listings. ~2026-14954-11 (talk) 11:00, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

  Wikipedia has its manual of style. Other publications have theirs. In the AP style "onto" would be capitalized. In Wikipedia's MoS it isn't. Nardog (talk) 11:34, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

• Support. Clearly, all RS use "Hold Onto Me", and we should follow them. MOS:5 should likely be eliminated; this is not the only case where such lowercasing is needlessly forced onto an article title. 162 etc. (talk) 21:01, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

  Thank you for supporting this. It would be greatly appreciated if we could have the title capitalized properly as the film’s actual title. ~2026-16151-72 (talk) 07:31, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

  If the rationale for moving this article is that the relevant Manual of Style guidance is problematic and should be updated, it seems more appropriate to first address that issue at the MOS itself, i.e. develop consensus there before using its perceived problems as a basis for moving this article. Otherwise, every standard can be conveniently hand-waved away by any editor who feels some specific policy of guideline is worthy of being eliminated. Οἶδα (talk) 20:57, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

  Also, just three months ago you voted 'Oppose' per Adumbrativus's rationale at Talk:Take_On_Me/Archive_1#Requested_move_5_December_2025. Curious how that aligns with your stated position here. Οἶδα (talk) 21:31, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

  The article title is Take On Me, and I opposed its move to Take on Me. That doesn't seem incongruent.

  And yes, User:Adumbrativus explained how MOS:TITLE actually seemed to support the capital letter in that example.

  Ultimately, I think that the WP:COMMONNAME in real-world examples rarely follows this 5-letter rule. I've already successfully challenged that with RMs such as Never Be Like You and A Girl Like Me (Rihanna album) with zero pushback. I would wholeheartedly welcome an RFC at WT:Manual of Style/Titles of works to discuss further. 162 etc. (talk) 21:43, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

  Yes, Take On Me was proposed to be moved to Take on Me, and Adumbrativus opposed it for the reason that TITLECAPS says prepositions containing four letters or fewer are not capitalized, while words that have the same form as prepositions, but are not being used specifically as prepositions are capitalized. The point I was making is that if you supported retaining the capitalization of "on" in "Take On Me" for the reason that it is not being used as a preposition, it logically follows that you support retaining the non-capitalization of "onto" in "Hold onto Me" if it is being as a preposition. Those are two sides of the same TITLECAPS coin. So unless you believe "onto" is not being used as a preposition in "Hold onto Me", I don't see why you would support this move whilst opposing the other on those grounds. Unless you intended to instead make a WP:COMMONNAME argument there too. However, I would point out that WP:COMMONNAME does not apply to typographic stylizations. It governs the words in article titles, not their capitalization. Otherwise we would follow every stylization used in WP:RS, with an article like Damn (album) being located at DAMN. instead. But we do not do that.

  And "onto" hardly ever functions as a non-preposition, so the post-RfC guideline under 'Potential exceptions' at MOS:TITLECAPS wouldn't apply as it did in your examples of Never Be Like You and A Girl Like Me (Rihanna album). Οἶδα (talk) 07:37, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

  I support WP:COMMONNAME. "Take On Me" is the common name. "Hold Onto Me" is the common name. We don't need a grammar lesson to determine that. 162 etc. (talk) 16:24, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

  WP:COMMONNAME does not apply to the capitalization used in WP:RS, because WP:COMMONNAME is not a style policy. I am not sure why you are continuing to insist that it is. I am sorry but you did not consider what I wrote above. So I please ask that you consider what I wrote and read WP:TITLECAPS again, specifically each bullet pertaining to prepositions. Because if you do not understand why your endorsed rationale at Take On Me is incongruent with what you are advocating here after what I outlined above (and below) then I'm unsure how else to explain it. I was not trying to lecture you with a grammar lesson, so forgive me. WP:TITLECAPS exists for a reason, and its guidances applied in that other move and, for the very same reason, apply here as well. Again: every convention in the MOS can be conveniently hand-waved away by any editor who feels some specific policy or guideline is worthy of being eliminated. So if you want that changed, go argue for consensus to be developed to have it changed in some specific way. Until then, your position here does not conform to that MOS guideline. I am sorry if perhaps you feel that I am perhaps wasting your time. That was not my intention here. I am merely trying to fully address this matter based on Wiki standards. I am not trying to share my opinion here. I do not have one. Should the community decide that WP:COMMONNAME or WP:TITLECAPS change in either of those directions I will accept and apply those changes in my argumentation. Otherwise, you must answer whether you believe "onto" is not being used as a preposition in "Hold onto Me". Because "Take On Me" is not the common name, "take on me" is, and it is capitalized as "Take On Me" on Wikipedia because of WP:TITLECAPS, not because of WP:COMMONNAME. Otherwise we would follow every title stylization most commonly used in reliable sources. Again, we do not do that. But again, if the community adopts a WP:COMMONSTYLE guideline I would have a completely different position here. There was an RfC in 2013 about doing just that, but nothing resulted from it. Οἶδα (talk) 06:20, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

  I fully understand that Hold Onto Me is not supported by the current wording of MOS:TITLE.

  I believe that MOS:5 more often than not contradicts actual, real-world usage, and that we are not doing our readers a favour by enforcing a title that does not reflect what actual sources use.

  The best place to discuss that, however, is WT:Manual of Style/Titles of works, rather than this RM. 162 etc. (talk) 17:26, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

  Agreed. We should not move pages based on any one user's desired changes in Wiki standards that have not yet occurred. That would be putting the cart before the horse. The community has not decided whether the titles of works should be presented to readers according to which stylization is prevalent in a significant majority of reliable sources. Until the community deeply considers the issue and reaches a consensus, I would not rush to claim whether or not we are doing our readers a favour. And certainly not advancing the issue through a single page move such as this one. That is all.

  It might be worth reading through the 2013 RfC at Wikipedia talk:Article_titles/Archive_40#RfC_on_COMMONSTYLE_proposal and SMcCandlish's comments at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Titles_of_works/Archive_4#Capitalizing compound prepositions. The topic is more convoluted and storied (read: contentious) than certainly I had first thought before participating in this RM, having previously voted in the RM for Lovin on Me. Οἶδα (talk) 05:44, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose per Nardog. This move calls to mind the moves for Take On Me and Lovin on Me. As discussed in those move proposals, we would need to show that the word is (or is not) being used as a preposition. In this case, we would have to show that "onto" isn't being used as a preposition to warrant a move. I do not believe that is the case here. In "hold onto me", the idea is "keep your hold on me" or "keep holding me". "onto" takes an object ("me"), and therefore behaves like a preposition, not a particle. Whereas in "take on me" the word "on" forms part of the phrasal verb "take on". As Ahecht touched on at Talk:Lovin on Me, Hold onto Me also fails the noun shift test for "onto" to be a particle. Unlike the phrase "take me on", the phrase "hold me onto" does not work. Οἶδα (talk) 21:28, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

  The question here should be how the title of the work is actually used in reliable sources, rather than applying capitalization rules in the abstract.

  Independent coverage consistently refers to the film as “Hold Onto Me.” For example:

  • Variety

  https://variety.com/2026/film/reviews/hold-onto-me-review-kpata-me-1236647078/

  • Cineuropa

  https://cineuropa.org/fr/newsdetail/488052/

  • The Film Verdict

  https://thefilmverdict.com/hold-onto-me/

  • IMDb

  https://m.imdb.com/title/tt36840995/

  This demonstrates consistent usage across independent sources.

  Per WP:TITLE and WP:COMMONNAME, article titles generally follow the name most commonly used in reliable sources when referring to a work. In practice, this principle often takes precedence for creative works when the usage across coverage is consistent.

  The title of a film is also a deliberate artistic and production choice. It is the form under which the work is presented publicly and discussed in the press. Wikipedia’s role is to document that established title as it appears in reliable sources, not to reinterpret or modify it according to internal capitalization preferences.

  Applying MOS:TITLECAPS rigidly here would produce “Hold onto Me,” which does not match the form used in independent coverage. Aligning the article title with the form consistently used in reliable sources ensures that Wikipedia accurately reflects how the work is identified and discussed in published coverage.

  Given the consistent usage in reliable sources, “Hold Onto Me” best reflects the title under which the film is known and cited. JennaRow (talk) 08:09, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

  That is completely AI-generated and rather obviously so, JennaRow. I would ask that you please not post AI-generated responses here. I understand that you are new and still learning, as you mentioned on your talk page, but I must ask you to independently consider the material here and consult the relevant Wikipedia guidelines being discussed before posting. Otherwise you cannot properly build an argument. LLMs are woefully incapable of providing analysis about Wikipedia policy and guidelines, routinely suffering from ridiculous hallucinations and complete fabrications of the truth. In this case, your AI is fabricating WP:COMMONNAME as saying that the capitalization of articles on Wikipedia is subject to the prevailing capitalization in reliable sources. There is no basis for that statement. The community has never decided that. Please see what I have written above. I realise I am responding to a bunch of robot babble so I am the loser in this situation. Thanks. Οἶδα (talk) 06:29, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

  I understand MOS:TITLECAPS, but this seems to be an exception where strict application reduces recognizability.

  “Hold Onto Me” is consistently used across reliable sources, whereas “Hold onto Me” is not.

  If needed, an alternative would be to use “HOLD ONTO ME,” which avoids the capitalization issue while remaining faithful to the title. JennaRow (talk) 08:18, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  Another completely AI-generated response, but now polished using AI to presumably avoid detection. Rather insulting, JennaRow. What your LLM is generating has no basis in Wiki policy or guidelines. It is also incoherent. Please stop. Οἶδα (talk) 21:55, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose per MOS:5 as above. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:40, 21 March 2026 (UTC)
• This is a tough one. "Hold on" is pretty clearly a phrasal verb, and "to" is pretty clearly a preposition, so normally we would capitalize it Hold On to Me, as all the examples at that disambiguation page show. Here, though, they've been fused (perhaps not entirely correctly) into "onto", which I suppose is acting as both a particle and a preposition. Sources do seem to think it's a phrasal verb (Cambridge, Collins, Oxford Learners' Dictionary), although they may not define that term as narrowly as we do. At any rate, this seems to be the unusual situation where MOS:TITLECAPS could go either way, so until the guideline is clarified I think we should let actual usage be the tiebreaker. Support. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:46, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  A phrasal verb is not the same as verb+particle. Some of them are, but others are prepositional verbs. If a phrasal verb requires a noun phrase following to make sense (i.e. behaves like a transitive verb), it is a prepositional verb. Nardog (talk) 07:02, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  You wouldn't disagree, though, that "hold on" (as in "I tried to hold on but couldn't) is verb+particle? "to" is certainly prepositional, but "onto" seems to be checking both boxes at once. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 07:32, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  That's the difference between semantics and syntax. That a preposition, e.g. near, is synonymous with a longer phrase, e.g. "in the vicinity of", does not make it not a preposition. All those dictionaries list on, in, off, out, up, etc. both as a preposition and as an adverb. But not onto. Nardog (talk) 11:56, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Normally, I'd close this as "not moved" on the rationale that MOS:5 is clearly meant to supersede COMMONNAME, but there seems to be some disagreement on whether MOS:5 even applies in light of whether "onto" really is being used as a preposition in this title. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:02, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

• Support, both unclear if "onto" is being defined correctly in above as well as the common sense to give official titles a bit more weight than other evidence in close RM and other decisions. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:58, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

  the common sense to give official titles a bit more weight

  The official title, "hold onto me", is already the title of this article. You are equating stylization with COMMONNAME. There is neither policy nor precedent supporting that conflation. Οἶδα (talk) 21:33, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Support as in this situation of it not being clear if onto is used as a preposition or not I'm drawn to this part of WP:TITLECAPS:

Potential exceptions: Apply our five-letter rule (above) for prepositions except when a significant majority of current, reliable sources that are independent of the subject consistently capitalize, in the title of a specific work, a word that is frequently not a preposition, such as "Like" or "Past". Continue to lower-case common four-letter (or shorter) prepositions like "into" and "from".

This actually allows for prepositions under four letters long to be capitalized in certain situations and, in the case that "onto" is being used as a preposition here, I find this to be one of them. Considering that there is discussion about if "onto" is used as a preposition or not here that seems to me to imply that it is at least somewhat frequently not used as a preposition, and as demonstrated above a significant majority of current, reliable sources that are independent of the subject do in fact consistently capitalize, in the title of this specific work, the word "onto". With that in mind I feel like I don't really need to worry too much about the grammar debate. This works regardless of its' outcome, if I have read the guideline correctly. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 12:52, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Read the 2018 RfC that introduced that exception. It applies to words frequently used as non-prepositions. That was the whole point. And the reality is that "onto" hardly ever functions as a non-preposition. And certainly is not being used as a non-preposition here. I'll say again: In "hold onto me", "onto" takes an object ("me"), and therefore behaves like a preposition, not a particle. Whereas in "take on me" the word "on" forms part of the phrasal verb "take on". Hold onto Me also fails the noun shift test for "onto" to be a particle. Unlike the phrase "take me on", the phrase "hold me onto" does not work.

Considering that there is discussion about if "onto" is used as a preposition or not here that seems to me to imply that it is at least somewhat frequently not used as a preposition

By that logic, because people argue about whether the Earth is flat then it must be "somewhat frequently" flat.

a significant majority of current, reliable sources that are independent of the subject do in fact consistently capitalize, in the title of this specific work, the word "onto".

Again, that is a WP:COMMONNAME argument, and COMMONNAME governs the words in article titles, not their capitalization because it is not a style policy. And the small selection of sources for this one specific topic capitalizing "onto" as part of the title of a creative work does not automatically imply anything about the larger usage of the word "onto" as a non-preposition in the English language. That is a fallacy. Οἶδα (talk) 08:12, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

That flat Earth analogy is portraying my reasoning in very unfair way and I don't appreciate it. "Frequently" and "somewhat frequently" are not clearly delineated terms, so whether or not you agree that the description applies for X is Y some amount of the time is a bit subjective, except for situations where X is never Y and X is always Y. The Earth is of course never flat, making it obviously objective incorrect to describe it as "frequently" or "somewhat frequently" being flat. The same doesn't go for "onto" being used as a non-preposition, which, from reading you arguing about it, I can tell it occasionally is, which means "frequently" and "somewhat frequently" may or may not apply depending on how often one demands X is Y for X to frequently/somewhat frequently be Y. It's far from obvious, unlike with the flat Earth.

I don't see how the fact that "onto" isn't used as a preposition here affects my argument as I specifically stated that I was arguing from the position that the exception applied. I also don't see why you're bringing up WP:COMMONNAME when I was mimicking the wording used in WP:TITLECAPS. I wasn't arguing WP:COMMONNAME. I was also not arguing that sources capitalizing onto for this one topic says anything about the larger usage of the word in English, I mentioned that because it's a requirement for the exception I quoted to apply.

With all that said, your objection that "onto" is not frequently used as a non-preposition in the English language is a valid one. This isn't something I can easily tell, partly because nobody has posted a source for how often it is used as a preposition and how often it is not and partly because "frequently" is vague. If you've got some source telling me that onto is almost always used as a preposition I'd be willing to change my stance from support to oppose. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 09:23, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Cyprus and WikiProject Film have been notified of this discussion. Qwerty123M (talk) 05:45, 2 April 2026 (UTC)