Screenwriting and dramatic structure

Entry twenty-nine is l’apertura prima dei titoli, and it is the plural at the end that repays a moment. In English the film sense of « titles » is narrow: the lettering at the start or the end of a picture, and almost nothing else. Italian keeps i titoli in that job — i titoli di testa at the front, i titoli di coda at the back, and this entry is the scene that runs before the first of them — but it also sends the same plural to three other counters. I titoli are the headlines of a newspaper, so i titoli di oggi is the front page read aloud. I titoli are securities on a market, which is why i titoli di Stato are government bonds and not a list of names. And i titoli di studio are the qualifications somebody puts on a job application. The singular is tidier: il titolo is a title, and a titolo di esempio means by way of example, where the word has stopped naming anything at all.