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Proposal regarding unusual prepositions in titles (re: clarification request in RM closure)

RM closure at Talk:Do It like a Dude#Requested move to Do It Like a Dude has specifically requested:

The result of the move request was: no consensus at this time, and strongly suggest clarification of the relationship between WP:COMMONNAME and WP:MOSCAPS. This has been a recurring problem lately in requested moves and requires that we get beyond local consensus and look at the root of the problem. One solution would seem to be adding an explicit statement in WP:MOSCAPS that common name does not imply common style, and that the MOS should be used to determine style (including capitalization) in article titles. The other solution would seem to be adding an explicit direction that the style guide is only to be used for titles in cases in which the most common stylization of the title is unclear, which would be closer to the way we negotiate WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The final two sections of WT:MOSCAPS are currently attempts to clarify this exact problem, but have not received replies or yet established consensus. Although a majority of the editors responding here are in favor of a move, I am unwilling to close this as a move when a majority of editors are also supporting a move the other direction in a move request started less than an hour after this one. I'm closing both requests (and Talk:Walks Like Rihanna) as no consensus and asking that discussion continue at WT:MOSCAPS. Dekimasuよ! 19:07, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Given that MOS:TM was recently changed (though not with a broad consensus) to permit unusual stylizations in cases where the RS consistently use them (generalizing perhaps beyond rarities like Deadmau5 and iPad) it would probably be controversial to add "an explicit statement in WP:MOSCAPS that common name does not imply common style", and MOS:CAPS would not be the place for it, but MOS's top-level page. I think this is unnecessary, because WP:AT policy consistently and repeatedly defers to MoS on style matters as do the naming conventions guidelines. In the general abstract, this is really an issue of MoS being a guideline to which WP:COMMONSENSE requires there will occasionally be limited exceptions, based on consistent use in reliable sources.

That said, on this particular recurrent matter, we can clarify with what seems to me minimal pain.

Proposal:

After this bullet, under "The following words should be capitalized:",:

• Prepositions that contain five letters or more (During, Through, About, Until, Below, etc.)

add this:

• A shorter preposition (notwithstanding the general rule) not usually thought of as a preposition, when it is consistently capitalized in high-quality, general-audience, reliable sources, with regard to the specific work in question (common with prepositional use of like, as in "Do It Like a Dude".

(plus a conforming cross-reference in the "see also below" note at the general rule about short propositions).

I'd be in favor of this today, due to the never-ending combat about this issue, though I would have opposed it only a few months ago.

PS: Note that this would not permit absolutely sub-standard English, like capitalization of definite/indefinite articles (the/a/an), short standard prepositions (of, from, in), or short conjunctions (and, or, but) in the middle of titles. This is not a "land-grab" for some kind of "do whatever teenager-oriented (and often -written) pop-culture blogs are doing" nonsense, only what high-quality, mainstream, non-specialized publications are doing, for specific titles, in edge cases, and where the exception dwarfs the "rule". Only a linguist, probably, would even recognize propositional use of what are usually not prepositions, and major publishers have been getting this "wrong" for a long time.
PPS: I do not now what the closer meant by "The final two sections of WT:MOSCAPS are currently attempts to clarify this exact problem"; neither the current page nor the last two archives have such threads.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:50, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

PPS: Besides like, this often happens with latinisms like ex, and other non-English prepositions when used in English in titles: Deus Ex Machina, "California Über Alles". Our length rule clearly needs room for exceptions, when the sourcing for a particular work very strongly supports one, and not as a general rule about particular words: We would not "force" capitalization of ex in a title (including of another Deus ex Machina) that did not actually use it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:47, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Comments

• Sounds like a good idea (possibly with some tweaking). Should we also refer explicitly to "than" (whatever part of speech different people may call it), as in Drunker Than Me? --Boson (talk) 11:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
• I don't object... but I do question whether it is really necessary to spell all this out. There is nothing wrong with the current MOS guidance... as long as people understand that every MOS rule will have occasional exceptions. The arguments occur because some editors treat MOS inflexibly, and are unwilling to even consider exceptions, not because our rules are "bad". Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
• Explicitly allow both styles for prepositions with five letters or more (or at least don't explicitly ban either). General English allows both, so we should give the editors some freedom. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:06, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
• The preposition like is a good example, because almost everyone capitalizes it. When you say that Wikipedia should follow the capitalization used by high-quality sources, this essentially means following the style guides of those sources by proxy. Wouldn't it be much simpler then to say in the Wikipedia MOS that like is always capitalized? Because this is what the result will be anyway. I don't think consulting high quality sources will show that e.g. like is consistently capitalized in Do It Like a Dude, but consistently lowercased in Walks Like Rihanna. Darkday (talk) 22:39, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
• Along with "like", another preposition that is causing issues of whether to use a capital letter or not is "but" – specifically the David Guetta album Nothing but/But the Beat. The argument here is that "but" is not being used as a conjunction in its standard sense to mean "however", but as a preposition to mean "except". Richard3120 (talk) 02:41, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support the addition because it does seem most sources tend to capitalize "Like" (and possibly others). Calidum 21:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Detailed discussion

• @ Darkfrog... The issue isn't about larger words (five letters or more)... it's the smaller words (four letters or less) that cause the debate (words such as "Like", "Than", "Of", and even "A"). Specifically, the arguments occur when these words are capitalized in the title (or "name") of a specific creative work (a Song title, a book title, a movie title, etc.). The standard rules of grammar say to not capitalize such words, and the MOS reflects those standard rules... the question is: If an overwhelming number of independent sources all capitalize the short word in a specific work's title, should we set the standard rules of grammar to one side - and make an exception to the MOS? I think we should... but I question whether we need to explicitly say "make an exception". The need to be flexible about enforcing MOS is always present... and every rule will have situations when the occasional exception is called for. But the situations where an exception would apply (especially in this case) are going to be rare... so I question whether spelling it all out is simply unnecessary instruction creep. There is no need to talk about the rare exception... there is simply a need to occasionally make the exception. Blueboar (talk) 23:06, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Except it's not about "of" of "a"; high-quality sources consistently lower-case these. They don't consistently lower-case "Like" when used prepositionally, and there are probably other cases (I'd need to see example data for "Than" used in titles, excluding sources that are devoted to pop culture; what does the The New York Times do? What does Encyclopaedia Britannica do? Is it consistently upper- or lower-case, or a mix? Is it consistently one way or the other for certain works? For certain constructions? It's clear that with "Like" what is happening is a) many people do not recognize its use as prepositional even when it is, and capitalize it, while b) many capitalize it because the publisher/artist does. This is the explanation for why a) "like" is capitalized more often than, say, "from", but b) the capitalization is not consistent across titles, but only for specific titles. This indicates as real-world trend toward respecting capitalization of long-ish prepositions as a matter of artistic intent. I don't see any evidence that anyone but People magazine, Spin magazine, and other either low-quality sources or non-independent sources, are following the artist/publisher's lead when album covers or whatever mis-capitalize "A" or "Of"; there are limits that most professional editors just won't cross. It's not WP's job to help try to force people across it. It's also not our job to try to force them back across it when they've already done so for some uses of "Like" or "Than".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree that "but that is how it is on the album cover" is not a valid argument (that argument is rejected at WP:COMMONNAME as well... and is best explained at WP:Official name)... This is why we always need to look at what independent sources do (and pay most attention to high quality independent sources - when high quality sources which normally don't capitalize such words, but do when discussing a specific title we should pay attention). Situations like these do not happen very often... but when they do we should be prepared to make an exception to our normally very sound guidance. And I would be willing to bet that if we were to look hard enough, we could find a specific case where high quality sources have capitalized "of" or "a". It would be extremely rare (indeed should we find a case, it may well be unique)... my only point is that should we find one, we should be prepared to make the necessary exception. One size will often fit almost all... but it never fits all. EVERY rule has exceptions. as long as we accept that, there is probably no reason to venture into instruction creep by trying to codify the exceptions. All that is really needed is a willingness to back down and say, "yeah... I guess that one is an exception". Blueboar (talk) 02:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

There's some pop song with a recent or ongoing RM, where they're trying to capitalize "A" in the middle of the title, but if you actually look at the sourcing it's music magazines imitating the album cover, teenagers' self-published blogs, lyrics copyvio sites, YouTube copyvios, etc. Music mags are not independent sources for this sort of thing because their advertising money comes from the recording industry, which exerts pressure on such publications to do what they're stylistically told to do by the record companies; thus they'll write "P!nk" in reference to the singer, to suit the record company's PR demands, but no one else but Pink's fans do that). I've also seen some people arguing not just for "Do It Like a Dude", but even "Do It Like A Dude" on this basis, I think. Not gonna fly, even if "Like" does in that case.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:03, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

SMC, I think you are seriously over-reaching when you lump all "music mags" together and say "not independent". We can not (and should not) speculate as to why the editorial board of a publication styles things the way it does. Their decision may have been influenced by the desires of their advertisers... but there may have been lots of other factors as well. Also, influence is not the same as direct control, and dependence/independence hinges on fairly direct control.

Influence is a very tricky hat to hang any argument on... Once we start to speculate on potential influence, we are only a few short steps from saying "Historian X is not independent when writing about the history of the Reformation... because he is a Catholic and therefor has to say whatever what the Pope wants". (I know you would never argue something like that, but I hope you get my point).

That said... Certainly the quality of the sources is something to consider when weighing sources... if the low quality music industry mags capitalize, while the higher quality music industry mags do not, I don't have a problem with giving a bit more weight to higher quality sources. On the other hand, if the higher quality music mags also capitalize, that says something important... something we should give a lot of weight to. Blueboar (talk) 12:14, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll just have to agree to disagree with you on this. It would be WP:OR to try to ferret out which publications are doing what the covers do for what reasons, which are more influenced by advertising dollars, etc. It's a clearly observable fact that music mags do what the covers do more than other publications do, and that is sufficient to treat them as biased on the issue, as a class. I.e., err on the safe side.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:21, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

• @Darkday: I'm skeptical on that ["like is always capitalized ... because this is what the result will be anyway"], because articles here on works with a "[l|L]ike" in the middle of their titles are frequently subject to debate, mostly about what the sources are doing, and they frequently end up at "like" not "Like" titles here, yet only just now is anyone proposing to change/adjust the MOS rule, suggesting that MOS has not generally been thought of as defying common practice. Regardless, no harm can come from saying "do what the sources do with regard to the specific work" in this instance: Either we'll correctly vary based on actual usage, or we'll correctly (if your prediction is correct) capitalize this in titles generally because all the sources are doing so. Win–win scenario.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

The approach "do what the sources do" and have the MOS only as a fall back contradicts the intention of a style guide: achieving internal consistency. Besides, I foresee many discussions whether a given source really is independent and of high-quality. “consistently capitalized” is also a matter of debate. Is 4 out 5 still consistent? Darkday (talk) 18:29, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Usually, I'd agree. The only thing we're considering here is when virtually all reliable sources consistently do it a particular way, we should consider a variance from MoS's default rule if that way differs from MoS's way; otherwise stick with the MoS rule for consistency. The only situation we're trying to avoid here is one in which robotic adherence to the letter of an MoS rule produces an anti-WP:COMMONSENSE result.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:07, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment As exactly the same search as I have previously referenced on this topic I have searched once again on "do it like a dude". First page results were:

Jessie J - Do It Like A Dude (Explicit) - YouTube

Do It like a Dude - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jessie J - Do It Like A Dude Lyrics I MetroLyrics

JESSIE J LYRICS - Do It Like A Dude - A-Z Lyrics

Do It Like A Dude (Explicit) - Jessie J - Vevo

Do It Like a Dude (tradução) - Jessie J - VAGALUME

Do It Like a Dude - Jessie J - VAGALUME

Do It Like A Dude I MTV UK

JESSIE J - DO IT LIKE A DUDE LYRICS

DO IT LIKE A DUDE - Jessie J I Letras.mus.br

In these cases the difference between what everyone else does and what is done on planet Wikipedia is less clear than it might be due to the wording "Jessie J ..." appearing at the beginning of several titles. In searches on other topics the contrast between our presentations here and presentations by everyone else can be far more readily apparent. GregKaye 12:34, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

NME presents "Do It Like A Dude"[1]

Rolling Stone presents both "Do It Like A Dude" and "Do It Like a Dude"[2]

Vibe presents "Do It Like A Dude" and "Do It Like a Dude"[3]

Billboard presents "Do It Like A Dude", "Do It Like a Dude" and once "Do it like a dude"[4]

mixmag presents "Do It Like A Dude" and "Do It Like a Dude"[5]

It is crazy that we do not do it like a reliable source. GregKaye 13:16, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

As your sourcing demonstrates, even the quasi-reliable sources you've chosen (music industry mags, which are not really independent of the record labels, deriving almost all their advertising dollars directly from them) do not do anything consistent with this title, so the MoS default rule clearly applies. What would be crazy would be capitalizing "A" in that title, even if a case can be made for capitalizing "Like" because so many general-audience, high-end sources do it. There's an demonstrable trend at least in American publishing to treat "Like" in titles of published works not as a the same kind of short preposition as "from" or "into", but like a long, conventionally capitalized one, like "Toward". There is no such demonstrable trend to capitalize "a/an" or "the" in titles (except when it's the first word). An any rate, the very fact that even the music industry rags, which usually carefully mimic the exact "official" spelling used by the record label, can't settle on a spelling for this titles utterly disproves the idea that "Do It Like A Dude" is near-universally used in this case. By default we should use "Do It like a Dude", unless there's compelling evidence in favor of "Do It Like a Dude" (I suspect there is). There is absolutely not compelling evidence in favor of "Do It Like A Dude"; the exact opposite is true. PS: YouTube posts, lyrics piracy sites, and random non-English music sites in Brazil are not reliable sources for anything at all. And Vevo is not an independent source on this, but is simply regurgitating titles exactly as they appear on the releases they receive from the labels (same goes for iTunes, etc.); they are republishers of the content (primary sources), not third-party, secondary sources writing independently about the content. (I'm criticizing the sources, here, not your research, BTW.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:07, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• To my mind, the issue comes down to a very simple question... Which capitalization will result in a stable article? It does not really matter what the MOS says... if an attempt to "conform" something to MOS ends up causing more arguments than leaving it alone does - then "conforming" to MOS is disruptive. An exception should be made. (And no... MOS does not need to be amended to account for the exception... the exception is article specific and can remain "unwritten"). Blueboar (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
  • If it's unwritten it'll just generate more of the very conflict you're concerned about, though. We see this all the time. Some WP:LOCALCONSENSUS forms for some exception, on grounds that clearly do not have unanimous agreement, and a month or six months or two years later, the very same move discussion starts up all over again, rehashing the same arguments on all sides, and quite often reverses what the original "consensus" was. It's much more stable to identify the specific issue leading to the conflict, and try to generalize something from it that can be applied across similar articles consistently, and with a single consistent rationale (e.g. overwhelming use in reliable sources, even those that would otherwise not use the style in question, for the case at hand). With this particular case, there are actually three different views on what the title should by (and at least three rationales for why, possibly more than three), so to the extent this particular article retains any sustained interest (random pop song already fading from public consciousness ...) disagreement would likely continue to arise anyway. Plus there's an element of "activism" going on here, of trying to "stick it" to MOS. Giving the campaigners what they're tendentiously demanding without there being a rationale applicable to the decision, beyond "to make the arguing stop" simply emboldens every single person with an anti-MOS bone to pick to create a new "controversy" about whatever their stylistic pet peeve is, and to keep at it until they get what they want, on the theory that "caving in to end an argument" is some kind of overarching MOS goal. It's not. Having consistent, rational rules that prevent new disputes from arising by generalizing from the resolution of old ones is what MOS is mostly for. Having an ever growing number of totally random, unexplained exceptions for which no rule-based rationale can be located, is the exact opposite of the approach that leads to such systemized strife reduction. Creating an exception without generating a reusable rationale for it is simply a failure.

    Anyway, to answer your question, I think "Do It Like a Dude" is mostly likely to result in a stable title, but only if MOS recognizes that some not-quite-five-letter, unusual prepositions are treated like longer prepositions. Without it, instability will result from later attempts to apply the 5-letter rule. "Do It Like A Dude" would always be unstable because it violates basic a English style maxim recognized by all style guides. "Do It like a Dude" would be unstable because, while MOS as presently written (and most external style guides) call for it, too many of the non-trivial sources aren't going that way. Capitalization of prepositional like is an item of real-world, ongoing language change. We can take a "never do it" proscriptive traditionalism position, an "always do it" neologistic activism position, or our standard "follow the sources" position.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:31, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• Update: RM at Talk:Hurts Like Heaven is closed as "no consensus". --George Ho (talk) 14:54, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Should breed names be capitalized?

Hi. It's always been my understanding that dog breeds (Chihuahua, Golden Retriever, etc.) should have their names capitalized. However, when I edited the Dachshund page to reflect this, it got reverted back to the uncapitalized version of the name, with the reason given that a breed name is a common noun, not a proper noun. I have always thought that breed names were proper nouns. I'm confused, since most of the breed names in the various articles are capitalized. I know there is a formal consensus by WP:EQUINE to put horse breed names in caps, is there such a consensus for dog breeds? White Arabian mare (Neigh) 13:18, 4 October 2015 (UTC)White Arabian mare

The house style is to capitalise proper names, not common names. My opinion, for what it's worth (approximately zilch) is that horse breeds, like dog breeds are common nouns and should not be capitalised. Consensus is a fickle thing ... Dondervogel 2 (talk) 20:34, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

There was a long discussion in the past about the English names of species, which concluded that they should not be capitalized, although previously many were (especially birds, butterflies and moths, and a sizeable fraction of plants). I have never been persuaded that the names of breeds are any different from the names of species. Neither are proper names, so that can't be a reason to capitalized them. User:SMcCandlish has thought and written about this issue, and probably has something to add. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Usage varies out there; personally, I'd rather not see capping on this site. Tony (talk) 10:24, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, usage varies (but then it does for the English names of species, which I still have to capitalize in everything I've been writing lately outside Wikipedia). See User:SMcCandlish/Organism names on Wikipedia#Capitalization pro and con for some arguments on either side.

Although SMcCandlish and I haven't always agreed on some matters, I strongly agree with him that "a formal consensus by WP:EQUINE" cannot bind Wikipedia, only offer support for one style over another in any discussion. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:08, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I've been maintaining strict neutrality on this one for several years (after changing my mind a couple of times early on when I thought I "had the answer"). This unresolved issue has actually held up the implementation of MOS:ORGANISMS as a guideline, despite the page's stability and the depth of the research work behind it. I think I'd finally be in favor of a proper RfC on the issue to settle the matter of how to deal with animal breed orthography. The "issue fatigue" after WP:BIRDCON has subsided. Given the length and rancour of that previous capitalization-of-organisms dispute, I would suggest that that the RfC question be carefully drafted here, giving time for neutrality-cleanup input, then opened at the main WT:MOS page as a formal RfC (perhaps including my collected pro-con material in a collapse box under the question, as background), and advertised via both WP:VPPOL and WP:CENT, so we don't get a repeat of the species capitalization debates, which took years to resolve. I would also avoid clouding the question with any side arguments like disambiguation disputes. It might be best if someone other than me were to open the formal RfC after the drafting phase.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:45, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Communism, capitalism, socialism, and solidarity need caps in headings and articles?

Can't figure it out from the prose and examples in the MOS. Cheers! ...Checkingfax ( Talk ) 21:06, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Your three "isms" are common nouns and should not be capitalized (except of course when they're the first word of a sentence/title/heading/etc). On the other hand, the names of specific political parties incorporating such terms into the name are proper nouns and should be capitalized (e.g., Italian Communist Party). I can't think of any case where those three "isms" are proper nouns in and of themselves, but the "ist" versions might be — a person who upholds the ideas of communism is a communist, but a member of a particular party with "Communist" in the name is a Communist.

In most cases, "solidarity" is a common noun, but the Polish trade union Solidarity should be capitalized.

Hope the principles are clear. --Trovatore (talk) 21:51, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Trovatore, check my latest entry here to see if I got it right. ...Checkingfax ( Talk ) 01:28, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Looks fine. I removed an unnecessary piped link. (This is actually a slightly ambiguous case, because the movement could be described as "anti-communist" in the sense that it's against communism, or "anti-Communist" in the sense that it's against the Polish Communist Party, but given that there's no clear evidence on which to base the distinction, I'd go with the less marked form, which is the lowercase version.) --Trovatore (talk) 01:32, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Agreed with Trovatore, but would clarify that a communist who was a "Communist" also, for being in the Communist Party of Berkeley or whatever, would only be referred to as a Communist in the context of their relationship to the party; a sentence about their politics in general would refer to them as a communist. This is essentially the same principle as job titles. I'm a webmaster (among other things) professionally, but I'm not a Webmaster except in the context of an employer who has assigned me that as my official job title there. For political isms, this distinction can be important, since political parties do not always advocate philosophies that agree with their names. In the US for example, plenty of Democrats advocate anti-democratic things, and most Republicans don't even understand what "republican" in the general sense means (many hold states-rights views that are essentially anti-republican but extremist Republican in the special party of the American political party, which has little similarity to Republican parties in other countries).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:54, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Use "Deaf" or "deaf"?

Deaf culture in Australia is a redirect to Australian deaf community. At the moment, there's a bit of an edit-war at Auslan, with one editor changing [[Deaf culture in Australia|Australian Deaf community]] to the unpiped [[Australian deaf community]], while another is restoring the link claiming that "deaf" in "Australian Deaf community" should be capitalised.[6][7][8][9] My own opinion is that it should not be capitalised, but I thought I'd seek other opinions here. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:05, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

How do the sources capitalize when they discuss the topic? and given how the PC community prefers positive, empowering language... is "deaf" even the approved word? Shouldn't it be something like "silence-enhanced"? Blueboar (talk) 14:30, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

There is among advocates a tendency to capitalize the word, saying that it's a unique culture (being they have a distinct form of language). However, mainstream usage still lowercases it in practice (there is no one unified deaf culture). PS, Blueboar, the snarky comment is unneeded; it just makes you look foolish. oknazevad (talk) 15:19, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Australian deaf community presently only has two online references and a multiple issues template. The Deaf Australia website seems to mostly capitalise the D in "Deaf culture" which makes sense as the organisation appears to be advocating for the recognition of a cultural group, and most ethnocultural groups would be capitalised (Kaurna, Kurdish, British culture). The Auslan website does not capitalise deaf in "the deaf community" --Scott Davis ^Talk 00:05, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Lower case, of course. I'm pretty sure zero style guides would approve of capitalizing here (and I own most of them). It's a common noun (when used as a noun – "the deaf") derived from an everyday descriptive adjective. A random intersection of people do not magically become a proper noun simply because their intersection happens to align with social aid / legal protectionism politics. Ellen DeGeneres is a lesbian not "a Lesbian". This capitalization of broad-swath classifications of people seems to be an overgeneralization from the once fairly common habit of capitalizing "Black" and "White" as racial terms. While this is still attested in some modern sources, it's decreasingly common, probably because people are more aware today of the difference between an actual ethnicity (a cultural group) and a generalization based on skin color. Most people have figured out by now that the entire continent of Africa doesn't consist of a single culture (only 50 or so years ago, you'd be surprised how many people did not know that). Anyway, WP is not obligated to impose on its readers the odd orthography of activist groups (or other knots of specialists with their own lingo). The question "How do the sources write this?" is usually helpful for WP:COMMONNAME purposes (e.g. to distinguish whether "German Shepherd" or "Alsatian" is the more common name of a dog breed), but rarely for style matters (like whether to capitalize "Shepherd" in that, or append "dog"). "How do other style guides treat this type of usage?" is usually a better one, though even then WP is not bound to do what the Chicago Manual of Style or New Hart's Rules do (when they don't contradict each other, which is frequently). MoS advises what editorial consensus determines is the best course for reader utility and, secondarily, for reduction of editorial strife.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:15, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

MOS:ISMCAPS badly needs to be tightened

Somehow the clear intent and meaning of MOS:ISMCAPS is not quite getting through, especially with regard to new religious movements (and most especially with -isms relating to neopaganism and Celtic/Nordic spirituality, long a hotbed of special-exceptionalism). The use of overcapitalization for promotional purpose is a subtle by serious WP:NPOV problem.

Quoting a recent, experienced RM closer: "There seems a degree of uncertainty of how to regard CR and related pagan issues. Our in house style regarding this article's name is MOS:CAPS#Religion, and there is some uncertainty and disagreement of how exactly the article relates to the advice in that section." In the same week, three obvious MOS:ISMCAPS moves failed to come to consensus at WP:RM:

• Talk:List of Pagans#Requested move 20 October2015 – "No consensus" despite the fact that our articles on [neo]paganism don't use "Pagan" or "Neopagan" (one did, and I fixed it, without objection). Paganism is not a religion, it's a general classification of many distinct non-Abrahamic faiths/ways, thus a common noun by definition. Even the more specific "neopagnism" is also. Other than being recent and non-Abrahamic there is no connection of any kind between Asatrú and, say, revival of native African religions, or whatever. This article also has a serious scope and inclusion criteria problem (Is it for neopagans? Historical pagans in Abrahamic-dominated places? Everyone non-Abrahamic since the existence of Abrahamic religions? Everyone non-Abrahamic since the dawn of history?)
• Talk:Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism#Requested move 20 October 2015 – Not a religion but general categorization of a bunch of religious/spiritual movements and ideas, and thus a common-noun phrase, like "Abrahamic religions". Just because it's more specific than [neo]paganism doesn't make it a proper name. Cf. Polytheistic reconstructionism (not "Reconstructionism").
• Talk:Celtic Revival#Requested move 24 October 2015 – this pertains more to the MOS:DOCTCAPS subsection; the sole opposition's claim that this is always capitalized in sources is false; it' tends to be capitalized by Celticist sources, not by anyone else, this is a classic case of WP:SSF (I think that editor is confusing this with Celtic Twilight, a late 19th century arts movement that, like other arts movements, MoS says to treat like a proper noun [an idea we should revisit and probably undo, since it's what leads to so many of these disputes, and constant attempts to capitalize music and fiction genres, etc.]).

None of these concluded with a consensus in favor of capitalization; rather, interpretational issues surrounding MOS:ISMCAPS prevented a finding of consensus to do what the guideline says. On the plus side, the move of Cornish revival to the more specific Cornish language revival (which is what the article is about) proceeded without imposition of capitalization (despite having the same closer as the Celtic Revival discussion).

In all three cases there was near-zero turnout, just me and one opposer. There should be no room for such "uncertainty and disagreement". The less experienced closer of the other two did not appear to take into account the actual wording of the guideline or the reasoning about it, but seems to want it to be a popularity contest left up to those with a vested interest in the capitalization, as if WP:LOCALCONSENSUS did not exist: "pending further resolution of the issues among the pagans, Pagans and neopagans in other venues." The in-crowd of pagans and neopagans in other venues don't determine consensus on Wikipedia orthography, nor on whether their topic is within the scope of any particular MoS guidance (otherwise every single wikiproject on Wikipedia would choose to opt-out "their" articles from all MoS line-items they didn't like. I'd be tempted to WP:MR those two move rejections on this basis alone, except they no-consensus would surely be upheld for a difference reason: Insufficient editorial turnout.

♦ Anyway, the action-item here is to identify ways to clarify MOS:ISMCAPS so that there is less "uncertainty and disagreement" about what it applies to, and to forestall any WP:GAMING.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:40, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Dispute

Could some editors give their input at Talk:List of current heads of state and government#Basic grammar, please? --₪ MIESIANIACAL 04:21, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Should "Act 2" be capitalized?

It seems to me that if "6th Street" is a proper name, and therefore capitalized, then "Act 2" is also a proper name (yes, I know that "act" is a common noun in "the second act") and should be capitalized. Most of the time in Wikipedia, "Act 2" is capitalized, and it seems to me desirable to have consistency. There appears to be less support for capitalizing "scene 1". Chicago MOS says "act 2" is usually lowercased, but some online college writing guides favor upper case. I think WP should specify one or the other. Anticipating the response that anything goes as long as there is consistency within an article, I say it would not be a terribly good idea to use one case for Hamlet and another case for King Lear. And "act III" looks very careless. Chris the speller ^yack 16:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I see no reason to capitalise "her aria in act 2" (opera articles never use Roman numerals). Using lower case is consistent with several style guides and the treatment of "scene", "season", "episode". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:50, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Concur with Michael Bednarek; some fragment or segment of a work is not a work unto itself. "Sixth Street" is a proper name because it's a street, not a part of a street; "the 4300 block of Sixth Street", by way of analogy, is not "the 4300 Block". Not that streets and creative works make good comparisons to begin with.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:55, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

"The 4300 block" I would write as "the 4300th block", like "the second act". If I lived on "Block 4300", then I would capitalize that. Or if I happened to be in a neighborhood called The Dirty Block. If a chapter of a book was titled "Chapter 5: The Journey to the Outside", wouldn't you normally see it in title case? (Though there is an argument for using sentence case, as you would do for an article in a journal or edited monograph.) Then an untitled chapter could be just "Chapter 5". When is it a name and when is it a simple numeration? Pelagic (talk) 19:45, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

From a typographic/aesthetic point of view, "act III" looks weird but "Act III" does not. Perhaps it should be "act iii"? In running text, both "act 3" and "Act 3" look fine. Perhaps my preference for capitalizing Act and Chapter (and, yes, also Section and Episode) comes from seeing them as headings where the first word has to take a capital. Pelagic (talk) 19:45, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

But "the 4300 block" isn't the 4300th block. It's the 430th block in theory, but only if this numbering is actually consistent and the street is unbroken, which it often will not be. In many cities, the numbers reverse themselves after the street crosses a certain landmark, and the nomenclature varies by city (south 4300 block of Main, 4300-south block of Main, 4300 block of South Main, 4300 block of Main South; in some cities it's even more complicated, with SE, NW, etc., as in Albuquerque and parts of Washington DC. And in some cities, blocks on short, minor streets are numbered to correspend with blocks on much longer major streets that are nearby and parallel. And, for long roads that traverse more than one town/city, the block numbering can radically change at the next municipal boundary. Agreed "act III" looks weird, but WP shouldn't use that (or "act iii"). We eschew roman numerals unless they're part of the actual title (in which case it would be "Act III"); so we'd use "act 3" or "third act", like "season 3" or "third season", not "season III".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:04, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Capitalization of universe

English Wikipedia's capitalization of universe, in the sense of cosmos or all space and matter that exists, is inconsistent in article titles, article text, and sometimes within a single article. I propose adding the following text at the end of the last paragraph of the Celestial bodies section, or possibly as a separate paragraph, and also to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (astronomical objects):

The word universe, by itself, is a common noun and therefore should not be capitalized. It should only be capitalized when it is the first word in a sentence (although the word is normally preceded by the or an adjective) or is part of a part of a proper name, such as The Universe in a Nutshell (the title of a book), Nickelodeon Universe (the name of an amusement park), and Miss Universe (the name of a beauty pageant and the title of the pageant's winner).

In the sense of cosmos, the word universe is an uncapitalized common noun according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionaries Online (American and British), Random House Dictionary (American), Collins English Dictionary (British), Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Columbia Encyclopedia, and Wolfram Demonstrations.

Most of the style guides I have handy access to do not have a specific entry for the capitalization of universe. Although The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.) does not have such an entry, it uses the lowercase form in two examples of correct usage: section 9.8 and section 13.63. The 15th edition has an additional example in a sentence case title in section 17.145. The word should not be capitalized according to the Style Guide for NASA History Authors and Editors. I have omitted British English style guides that prescribe lowercase universe, but also prescribe lower case for words that Wikipedia capitalizes according to the MOS or other guidelines.

I do not mean to suggest that lowercase universe is used universally in the outside world. However, lowercase universe predominates in quality American publications, is even more dominant in British publications, and is (almost?) universal in English language science publications worldwide.

According to WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters, "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization" (lead section). The project page also observes, "As of May 2014, wikiprojects for some groups of organisms are in the process of converting to sentence case where title case was previously used" (Animals, plants, and other organisms: Common names subsection). Also, somewhere in the MOS or style guidelines, I recall a statement to the effect that where capitalization in reliable sources differs, Wikipedia favors treating a name as common rather than proper unless capitalization is almost universal—but I'm too tired to find it, although I tried.—Finell 07:05, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Your observations are correct. But have you seen the earlier discussions? The most recent (I think) was Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 18#Request for comment - Capitalise universe. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:05, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I was not aware of the history. It appears that the RFC mainly focussed on proposals to capitalize Universe always or whenever used in an astronomical context (the latter by analogy to Sun, Moon, and Solar System), and the converse, never capitalize Universe, which could never work because Universe is part of many proper names that everyone capitalizes, including the examples in the guideline that I propose.

The analogy to Sun and Moon is flawed. The generic moon is in common use as a synonym for other planets' natural satellites; sun is widely used generically to refer to other stars, especially stars at the center of a planetary systems outside our own (although I always use star), in the same way that solar system is widely used generically to refer to other planetary systems (I stick with planetary system).

On the other hand, using uppercase Universe is not in common use to distinguish ours from other universes. The topic itself is confined to esoteric speculation by some philosophers, cosmologists, and physicists. No style guide capitalizes cosmos. When used as a synonym for cosmos (which is the only usage of universe that my proposed guideline addressed), universe should likewise be lowercase.—Finell 02:05, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps some clarification of "what on earth or Earth did the last close mean?" could be achieved in discussion, but I fear there aren't enough new arguments and new participants to make re-opening the whole discussion worthwhile, not so soon after the last close. Of course, if others are enthusiastic, they should correct me. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 02:31, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Hahahahahaha! ( :) for you Peter) Cinderella157 (talk) 03:52, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Clarity on military institutions

I've recently encountered people who are removing capitalization from proper-noun usage of military institutions (e.g., changing "the Army" to "the army" despite clearly being used in context for "the United States Army"). Using the Army is clearly appropriate when it is obvious from context that is a shorter but still specific form of the United States Army, as clearly stated in MOS:INSTITUTIONS:

* Full names of institutions, organizations, companies, etc. (United States Department of State) are proper names and require capitals. Also treat as a proper name a shorter but still specific form, consistently capitalized in reliable generalist sources (e.g., US State Department or the State Department, depending on context).

MOS:MILTERMS explains that "army" is not capitalized when referring to military units, but it does not distinguish well between military units and names of proper institutions, even though these are very different things. I suspect the confusion is in the difficulty in distinguishing between the name of a specific institution (which is capitalized) and the common term for a military unit (which is not). I propose revising MOS:MILTERMS to clearly reconcile it with MOS:INSTITUTIONS, by adding the following:

* Names for military institutions and organizations follow the same capitalization guidelines as given under institutions above (e.g., the United States Army or the Army, depending on context). This applies only when the term is used as the name of a military institution: (The United States Army ordered new weapons; the Army expects to begin testing soon). When used as a common term to describe a military unit or force, do not capitalize (Napoleon's army suffered heavy losses; he ordered his army to retreat).

Shelbystripes (talk) 16:57, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

This has been discussed in a slightly different context here. The current consensus style in the English Wikipedia is not to capitalize words like "army" even when they refer to a specific army. The phrase shorter but still specific form does not include common nouns like "army" – see the precisely parallel example given at MOS:INSTITUTIONS of "university". It means noun phrases that, although shortened, are still obviously proper names. So those who have been de-capitalizing have been acting in accordance with what I understand to be the consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:01, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Edited: I am moving my further comments to that discussion for now. Shelbystripes (talk) 06:43, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Composition Titles section

I think this section is in dire need of featuring more in depth explanation to avoid some heated discussions I've seen. It needs to address the tricky issue that sometimes seems to arise regarding the capitalization of the word 'over' in songs. Also, it needs to add more examples next to each rule, especially on the phrasal verbs rule. In fact, the phrasal verb example of 'walk on' is actually one of the more confusing examples one can give and it is actually bound to confuse people even more! In my opinion, better and more common phrasal verb examples are: Hold On, Keep On, Turn On, Tune In, Come On, Turn Off and Bring On. It also needs to more clearly address the issue with compound prepositions like 'into', 'upon', 'onto', whether they should be always capitalized or provide some examples with exceptions. Chapa1985 (talk) 16:17, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Into, upon, and onto are not compound prepositions. Since they consist of four letters, according to our style manual they are not capitalized. Compound prepositions are those consisting of more than one word, as the examples in the manual make clear. Deor (talk) 15:50, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

So according to the manual here, how would you capitalize the following titles?: (I'm not 100% sure about any of them)

'once upon a time in the west' 'walk upon the water' 'once upon a daydream' 'let me put my love into you' 'i'm into you' 'got to get you into my life'

Chapa1985 (talk) 16:34, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Accoding to the style manual, they should be "Once upon a Time in the West", "Walk upon the Water", "Once upon a Daydream", "Let Me Put My Love into You", "I'm into You", and "Got to Get You into My Life". That doesn't mean that everyone who has written Wikipedia articles containing those titles has followed the style guidelines, though. Deor (talk) 16:57, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! That's how I would have written them too...except for "Got to Get You into My Life"...'get into' is supposed to be a phrasal verb..so wouldn't it have to be uppercase? Chapa1985 (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't parse "get into" as a phrasal verb there. Into clearly has a prepositional function in the title, with my life as its object, while you is the object of get. With a phrasal verb, there's only one object, and often the quasi-adverbial particle can either precede the object or follow it (compare "I tried on some clothes" and "I tried some clothes on"). "Into my life" specifies whither the "you" is to be gotten, whereas "on some clothes" does not specify where anything has been tried. Deor (talk) 23:52, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for taking time to answer! So, would this be correct?: "Just to Get into It". Chapa1985 (talk) 18:31, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Deor (talk) 18:44, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Chapa1985 (talk) 19:10, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

What about "Look on Yonder Wall", "Blues with a Feeling", "Ramblin' on My Mind", "Further on Up the Road", "Ain't That Just Like a Woman (They'll Do It Every Time)", "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day", "The Things That I Used to Do"? —Ojorojo (talk) 20:09, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

The first three are OK, as is the last one. The fourth should be "Further On up the Road" (on is an adverb and up a preposition). Like and over should be lowercase in the fifth and sixth according to the MoS (though I'm aware that like, in particular, has been a topic of a good deal of disagreement). Deor (talk) 20:44, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, any thoughts on the "a-prefixing" question? (more discussion at Talk:Hear My Train A Comin'#Title of the article). —Ojorojo (talk) 20:56, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Surnames beginning with non-capitalized letters

I've read the project-page article, but I'm not entirely sure I understand how to apply it in a particular situation. Consider the name Juan de Solis, where "de Solis" is the surname. If a sentence begins with the surname, is it "de Solis was born on ..." or is it "De Solis was born on ..."?

Any help you can provide will be appreciated. NewYorkActuary (talk) 01:19, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

This situation exists in several languages ("von", "van", "da"). IMO, all these ought to be capitalized when they start a sentence. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:01, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I used to have to regularly remove the {{lowercase}} template that was (mis)applied to articles like von Neumann universe or de Rham cohomology. That doesn't seem to happen very often anymore.

It is visually confusing to start a sentence with a lowercase letter. There are some things that can't be capitalized, ever (say the mathematical constant e), and these articles legitimately get {{lowercase}}, because if you did start a sentence with them, you would still lowercase them. But in these cases, we generally try to avoid starting a sentence with them. You wouldn't want to have to avoid starting a sentence with someone's name. --Trovatore (talk) 03:13, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I think that would be the general rule for virtually all uncapitalized words when they are used to start a sentence. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:11, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

That was helpful. Thank you all. NewYorkActuary (talk) 03:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Dirtlawyer1 except for one detail: The use of a capital letter to start a sentence in English is such a basic rule that I see no need to ever depart from it. I see no reason why the same rule would need to apply to the titles of articles. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:40, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Titles of articles are in sentence case, so the first letter should be capitalized if it would be capitalized at the start of a sentence. There is no excuse to slap {{lowercase}} on articles whose title start with such names. If we capitalize the D the title of the article dog, which we do, there's no reason not to capitalize the V in the title of von Neumann architecture.

On the other hand, we don't capitalize eBay or iPod or e, regardless of their position in a sentence, so those articles deserve to be lowercased. --Trovatore (talk) 20:12, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Capitalising the name of the article dog is a poor choice (in my opinion) because it serves no useful purpose and creates ambiguity, because you cannot distinguish it from the name of the film Dog. It is true that starting a sentence with a capital letter creates similar ambiguity but here you get something in return. It conveys information to the reader that he or she is embarking on a new sentence. Starting a sentence with lower case "e", whether the mathematical constant, "eBay" or "e.g.", is confusing and completely unnecessary. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 21:03, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, poor choice or good one, it's made and it isn't going to change. The time to make that argument was in 2002 or whatever year that was. It's pretty hard to change something like that. I'd like to change to serif fonts (because they would be better for math articles), but that isn't going to happen either. As long as that's the case, there's no need to make a special exception for articles starting with "von Neumann". --Trovatore (talk) 21:18, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

There's a difference between stating an opinion and advocating wholesale change, which I agree is unlikely to happen any time soon. So be it. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:17, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Responding to the OP: For a name like "Juan de Solis", use "De Solis was" at the beginning of a sentence. We don't capitalize "apples" normally, but you still write "Apples are" at the beginning of a sentence; it's the exact same rule (of formal English orthography universally, not just on WP). Some have argued that a trade name like "iPod" should be an exception, with "iPods are popular." being a valid sentence. That idea isn't supported by anything concrete, and the result of its application is confusing in practice, so just rewrite to avoid: "The iPod is popular." There are essentially no constructions of this sort that cannot be rewritten to avoid beginning a sentence with a lower-case letter.

Responding to the rest of the thread: I'd agree with the observation that it's legitimate to use {{Lowercase}} with the article iPod, but not with Von Neumann universe, because even in the academic literature the latter would be capitalized at the beginning of a sentence, while virtually no one seems to want to capitalize IPod for any reason, ever. This is a case where the real world is telling us we have to make an exception, as with the constant e (which also should not be used to begin a sentence in Wikipedia). As for WP title policy, I've always hated our use of sentence case for titles (of articles and of headings). It was done for technical reasons, I'm told, and I recall that it was also done, or had additional support, because of the supposition that people can't agree on what to capitalize in titles/headings (is it "about" or "About"?) However, I'm skeptical that, in 2015, whatever the technical issue was cannot be easily circumvented with a MediaWiki plugin (hell, I could probably write it myself), and we actually have stably settled on capitalization of prepositions at MOS:CT (though this took a long time, and there are some rare-case disputes about certain songs), so this could be subject to some kind of referendum for change, presumably at Village Pump. I note that Wiktionary lowercases every title that's not a proper noun, and so do most other online dictionaries. But, WP:NOT#DICTIONARY. I'd prefer that WP used title case for titles and headings, like almost all other publications do, aside from academic works in some fields and some percentage of newspapers for headlines (especially secondary ones). I doubt this will change here, though. It's on my top-ten peeve list, so I'd !vote in favor of that change, but I wouldn't bet on it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:38, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

I doubt that technical reasons have anything to do with using sentence case for article titles and headings. Title case for titles is most common in American English. Sentence case for titles is most common in British English, scientific writing (including American), and some other scholarly writing (including American). The Library of Congress uses sentence case for titles. If there is a trend, it is toward sentence case. The MOS prescribes sentence case for article titles and sections headings, but prescribes title case for titles in citations. I see this as an WP:ENGVAR compromise: 1 for the British, 1 for the Americans. I personally prefer title case, but that is only because, as an American, it is more familiar to me—which is irrelevant —Finell 00:19, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I have just come across a surname problem with the Swiss family of which Auguste Arthur de la Rive is the most prominent member. Reviewing authoritative and contemporaneous French-language sources, it seems that "Auguste [Arthur] de la Rive" is correct, but when he is referred to more formally as "De la Rive", or "De la Rive, Auguste", the D is in caps. The l is never in caps in a French language context. But some professionally-edited English language sources use different approaches; the Congressional Record (19th century) has Auguste De La Rive, and the modern Encyclopaedia Britannica has "Auguste-Arthur de La Rive", referring to him in the article as "La Rive" (no "de"). My impression is there is no standard convention in English text, and I can find no exceptions to the capitalizations I listed in French text, so I'm going with the French method. This is also congruent with MOS:CT. But is there other guidance in any formal English language style guides for writing names like this in an English context? David Brooks (talk) 02:44, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Another example from Bush shoeing incident:

al-Zaidi was subsequently grabbed, kicked and hurried out of the room by former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's guards.

I assume the surname should be capitalised as "Al-Zaidi" at the beginning of the sentence? Perhaps this should be clearly referenced at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Items that require initial lower case which mentions the personal preference of individual (e.g., k.d. lang) but not surnames with prefixes that usually take a lowercase letter (e.g., al-, de la, von, etc.). —sroc 💬 16:42, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Capitalization of a-prefixed words in titles

Several WP song titles use "a-prefixing" inconsistently: "Hear My Train A Comin'", "Train Kept A-Rollin'", "The Times They Are a-Changing", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", "Keep A-Knockin'", etc. According to several sources, it appears that the hyphenated usage is most common, but do not mention capitalization in titles.[10][11][12] Is there a preferred style for WP? —Ojorojo (talk) 20:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC

Personally, I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but since the a- is a prefix rather than a separate word, I'd be inclined to capitalize it (and lowercase the part after the hyphen), as in "Here We Come A-wassailing". Deor (talk) 11:24, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

So, wouldn't "Hear My Train A Comin'" at least need to have the hyphen in it? Chapa1985 (talk) 15:15, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't appear that there is a grammatical basis for "a-Rollin'" versus "A-Rollin'" and @Deor: has raised a third possibility, "A-rollin'" (I think we agree that "A Rollin'" is not a usual construction). Since all are potentially "correct", it probably comes down to stylistic preference. Maybe a proposal for a MOS:CT guideline be drawn up for WP:RFC. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:55, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

My view is that we should use, in each case, the wording originally used (or most often used in reliable sources), and entirely ignore questions of consistency between different article titles. But, where there is doubt or inconsistency between sources in a particular case, the default preference should be "a-Rollin'" (etc.). Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:29, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

FourFive options have been identified so far:

• Titles should reflect what is found in a preponderance of reliable sources, regardless of capitalization or use of a hyphen. For one song, it would be "Hear My Train A Comin'".
• Titles should be standardized to "a-Comin'" (lower case "a" and hyphen)
• Titles should be standardized to "A-Comin'" (upper case "A" and hyphen)
• Titles should be standardized to "A-comin'" (upper case "A" and hyphen, but lower case second part)
• Any combination of lower and upper case is acceptable, as long as a hyphen is used

Any comments before adding Wikipedia:Requests for comment? —Ojorojo (talk) 19:40, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

All I'm shooting for is to at least add the hyphen to it, I don't care about the uppercase or lower as the likeliest scenario is that all three different forms (a-Comin'; A-comin'; A-Comin') are probably acceptable. For me, the best move in this case seems to be accepting all three versions with the hyphen as the standard. Chapa1985 (talk) 20:32, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

@Chapa1985:, @Deor:, @Ghmyrtle: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#RfC: Should an "a-prefixing" guideline be added to MOS:CT? has been opened for comments. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Arabic guideline for Arabic the = al

WP:MOS/Capital letters should have a link to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Arabic#Definite_article in an obvious place, so that people can easily find it. It applies most commonly to names (proper nouns), since "al-" for ordinary words gets automatically translated to "the" in English, but in names it often does not get translated.. So I suggest that it goes under the section "Proper names". Any objections to adding the following paragraph to "Proper names"?

Arabic names usually start with the definite article "al-" and are not capitalised unless at the beginning of a sentence. Dynastic names are an exception. See WP:MOS/Arabic for details.

Since this talk page is regularly archived, feel free to insert the paragraph if there are no objections within e.g. 7 days. Boud (talk) 03:22, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Capitalize universe?

This has been inconsistent, since half of the articles capitalize it and the other half do not. So I'll ask: should "universe" be capitalized when referring to our universe? Should it be capitalized in "physical universe", "Gold universe", "zero-energy universe", etc.? Should similar ideas like "multiverse" be capitalized? Personally, I suggest Universe be capitalized when referring to our universe, just as "Moon" is capitalized when referring to our moon. However, models or features of the universe, like static universe, should be left uncapitalized as they do not refer to the Universe itself, but a concept of it. --Are you freaking kidding me (talk) 00:39, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Moon is capitalized only when referring to the astronomical body. You can write "the moon rose" with lowercase, since it's more about the appearance, not in an astonomical context. Similarly with earth. We had a megadiscussion about universe not long back, and I think it came to a similar conclusion, though I don't recall how the consensus was expressed (if there was one). Dicklyon (talk) 01:14, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Ah, here it is. There was support for this option: "Option 3. Shall The word 'universe' be capitalized when used in an astronomical context to refer to our specific Universe?" So now you just need a rationale way to decide what makes it "an astronomical context". Dicklyon (talk) 01:20, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

So what do you suggest? --Are you freaking kidding me (talk) 01:39, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

There's only one universe. Drmies (talk) 01:40, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

• Isambard Kingdom may have an idea about where this consensus is; like Dicklyon they comment on the copious discussions. I don't know where such discussions might be found. We could ask NASA--but they've already given their opinion: "Do not capitalize solar system and universe". ("Solar System"--another abomination".) Drmies (talk) 01:45, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
• Dicklyon, sorry, I didn't see you actually linked...something, haha, something complicated. AlbinoFerret, please tell us if it was yes or no. :) Drmies (talk) 05:24, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I argued for a style like NASA's, too, which is more consistent with MOS:CAPS, but our astro project people had different ideas. I linked and quoted the result of the big multi-option RFC, in which the close said that only "Option 3" was supported. Dicklyon (talk) 05:32, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, but it was far from unanimous or unqualified. Drmies (talk) 05:51, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I support universal use of lowercase in this case. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:23, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

You're in plenty of good company, but not in the majority, it seems. Dicklyon (talk) 06:48, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Drmies #3 had consensus to support the wording. AlbinoFerret 12:16, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

• Wait, was a consensus already met for option 3? If so, then isn't the entire problem settled? Just capitalize Universe? --AYFKM (talk) 07:22, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Well, it's not that easy, as I think Dicklyon indicated above, and it depends on "astronomical context". Drmies (talk) 14:50, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Er, so it's accepted that our "universe" be called the "Universe"? And all we have to do now is define a context? --AYFKM (talk) 21:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

If you want to know the full story, keep reading after the closureAstronomical Capitalization Issues and the request for review-Request for review of close at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Request for comment - Capitalise universe. The issue was (and still is) that there was an inherent contradiction wrt the close for options one and three. This was only exacerbated by procedural issues arising from how additional options were added, the validity of these and how editors chose to respond to these in light of their perception of their validity. as I read it, there is no consensus. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:21, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, the only thing that's clear is that there's no appetite for any hard-and-fast rule here. Dicklyon (talk) 03:37, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

• So, should we start another discussion on the talk page? Maybe then we'd reach a consensus? AYFKM (talk) 04:19, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Are you new here, or what? Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Yep, I am. AYFKM (talk) 04:57, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
      • Here's how it works: there's a broadly supported consensus at MOS:CAPS to not overcapitalize; to capitalize proper names and such that are almost always capitalized in sources, but to user lowercase in WP where caps are optional. However, each individual topic area tends to fight to capitalize their own stuff. The birders, the breeders, the astronomers, the train buffs, etc., each tend to stalement discussions about rationally applying MOS:CAPS to their areas, even when a great number of style guides and official organizations do it as MOS:CAPS suggests. If you have a new way to break this stalemate in the case of the astronomers, good luck with that. Dicklyon (talk) 16:31, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

WP:SSF goes into detail about all that, for anyone new to what's been happening with regard to such "issues".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:10, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

• Should generally be lower case (same goes for "multiverse", "universes", etc.). If someone wants to make a pro-capitalization case for specific special uses (e.g. a religion or spiritual movement that refers to the Universe or Multiverse the way Christianity refers to Heaven), they're welcome to make that case. But as in the a- prefixing matter just above, the MOS:CAPS rule still applies: Don't capitalize if in doubt, or when unnecessary. There is clearly doubt, and a preponderance of style guides do not require this to be capitalized (the exact opposite is the case), so capitalizing it in general uses fails both MOS:CAPS tests.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:10, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Extending the "one-letter lowercase prefix" rule to multiple-letter prefixes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Mooted by opening of RfC immediately below this thread.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:35, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

---

This discussion is related to a now-closed one at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 131#Talk:tvOS

Currently, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Trademarks says

Trademarks beginning with a one-letter lowercase prefix pronounced as a separate letter, followed by a capitalized second letter, such as iPod and eBay, are written in that form if this has become normal English usage. [...]

Conventionally, Wikipedia articles usually give the normal English spelling in the lead, followed by a note such as "(stylized as ...)" with the stylized version, then revert to using normal English for the remainder of the article.

and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks#Trademarks that begin with a lowercase letter says much the same thing.

This causes problems for trademarks beginning with, for example, a two-letter lowercase prefix pronounced as separate letters, followed by a capitalized third letter, such as tvOS. I think any sequence of initial lower-case letters pronounced as separate letters, followed by a capitalized letter, should be written in that form if it has become normal usage, so that tvOS is treated the same way as iOS. Guy Harris (talk) 23:57, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

But the one-letter is accepted English. If one starts down that road, where does one stop: "diycoyoydoyxoyxUFUFUFUF" anyone?! No thanks, the lead in the article perfectly explains the marketing variant usage by the company concerned, without having to have it clutter-up whole artcles, and all the other articles on WP which may refer to it as well. This has been discussed in various ways ad infinitum on WP, and has understandably for an encyclopaedia, been rejected. Hence the WP guide saying: "Conventionally, Wikipedia articles usually give the normal English spelling in the lead, followed by a note such as "(stylized as ...)" with the stylized version, then revert to using normal English for the remainder of the article." Jimthing (talk) 07:01, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The current Chicago Manual of Style says "Brand names or names of companies that are spelled with a lowercase initial letter followed by a capital letter (eBay, iPod, iPhone, etc.) need not be capitalized at the beginning of a sentence or heading, though some editors may prefer to reword." It also says "This departure from Chicago’s former usage recognizes not only the preferred usage of the owners of most such names but also the fact that such spellings are already capitalized (if only on the second letter).", so this is a new policy; it will be interesting to see whether they change it further in the future.

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, 5th edition, says "Generally render a name as the company does; consult the company website." and "When a company name calls for unconventional capitalization, heed any preference that requires up to three capitals in a word: eBay (but EBay for the first word in a sentence or headline)." They also say "Trademarks and service marks should be capitalized in news articles..." but also say "iPad, iPhone, iPod. But uppercase as the first word of a sentence or headline.", so they don't appear to have a general rule for trademarks of that sort.

The Associated Press style manual is similar to the New York Times manual, with similar rules for company names, a specific mention of eBay, a general rule that trademarks should be capitalized, specific rules for iProduct names, and no rule for tvOS.

So what I'm seeing for English is 1) exceptions for eBay, iPod, iPad, iPhone, etc. and 2) no mention of tvOS, which might reflect only its relative newness.

And if I search for "tvos site:nighttime.com", most of the hits are quoting somebody else - press releases, etc. - or quoting it as part of a vendor's product name ("Brightcove Native SDK for tvOS") and might not reflect any official New York Times decision, whether it's saying "tvOS" or "TVOS", both of which appear in quoted text. The Los Angeles Times has at least one article where they refer to it as "tvOS"

So,at minimum, I'd vote for Wikipedia to at least accept whatever updates, if any, are made to the style guides of various newspapers, and, if newspapers that adhere to the New York Times or Associated Press style manuals go with "tvOS", following in their footsteps. (And, no, I would have no problem with "diycoyoydoyxoyxUFUFUFUF", if that became common style.) Guy Harris (talk) 08:09, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

We should use whatever the reputable sources use. That is how it has always been on Wikipedia, whatever you say has to be backed up by reliable sources. It looks strange if we are making up different capitalizations to what the reliable sources use. The articles on Wikipedia should be written like they are going into a traditional, paper encyclopedia, and the paper encyclopedias use iOS, watchOS, tvOS, etc. Tom29739 (talk) 16:33, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Again we are an encyclopaedia, so we use correct language usage, other so-called paper encyclopaedia's dont even have articles on WatchOS/TVOS so please don't make things up. And no, they wouldn't use the marketing spellings either, but would use a lead explanation as we already do and have done for years. Again, regardless of the style guides of other sources, we don't follow their's but use our own for reasons deeper than simple what a marketing department used at the time. THAT is how it's always been on WP – as a relatively new user, please don't make things up, as more experienced users are going to not respect anything you have to say when you go down that path. And please STOP mis-editing pages claiming MOS allows you to, when it certainly does not!

Let me quote the MOS again for you: "Conventionally, Wikipedia articles usually give the normal English spelling in the lead, followed by a note such as "(stylized as ...)" with the stylized version, then revert to using normal English for the remainder of the article."Jimthing (talk) 08:56, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Its a mistake to say we follow the sources for style matters. We do try to be aware of current usage, and the main style guides, but Wikipedia MoS is unique and in some cases unusual.

As far as this particular issue is concerned I am not particularly wedded to our existing policy, though it seems a reasonable choice. There is nothing wrong with Ebay, Gmail and Ipod - the lower case letter is meant to be pronounced as a letter, following the paradigm of e-mail. Using caps to imply pronunciation, especially in the inverse of the normal manner is not intuitive. Thus TV-os would normally be pronounced "tee-vee-os" (however on pronounces "os").

Should some subsequent consensus decide to abandon idiosyncratic capitalisation of brands altogether, I would be quite happy.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:24, 16 January 2016 (UTC).

I strongly agree "Its a mistake to say we follow the sources for style matters." A triumvirate pushed that into this page (or maybe it was at MOS:TM, or both, I forget) about a year ago, and I "reserved the right" in exchange for withholding further objections to tweak it to not be so broad (i.e., it did not have consensus when inserted, just an agreement to test it and see how it would work out, which has been poorly). It's probably time we had a proper discussion about that and adjusted it. It has been leading to an increase in "my favorite music magazines spell it 'Do It Like A Dude" so WP has to also, or else" nonsense in a growing number of RMs. This needs to be reined in.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:31, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Moved comment to RfC below.

Original comment:

Reputable sources are not consistent on this, MoS doesn't toe the party line of any single style guide, and WP is not written in news style but academic style, so we're unlikely to import "rules" from journalism style guides if they don't agree with more academic ones. Chicago seems to have the same approach we do – don't let your head asplode about it if it's at the start of a sentence, but rewrite to avoid – but want to generalize it much farther than MoS does, to all trademarks, while MoS wants it only for one-letter ones. We have a right to come to that consensus. The existence of a handful of things like "tvOS" that don't quite qualify under this rule, can simply be WP:IAR exceptions. It is correct that we don't want something like "supermagicOS"; then we're wandering into MOS:TM conflict. The only way we'd accept something like that is if, as with Deadmau5, reliable sources overwhelmingly consistently use the stylized version. (That's also a valid reason to use "tvOS"; I'm skeptical more than a handful of sources call it "TvOS" except where their stylebooks force them to at the beginning of a sentence, or that more than few, unfamiliar with the subject, call it "TVOS".)

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC) Collapsed, 03:35, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Plaques in all-caps ?

Should they be reduced per MOS:ALLCAPS: "Reduce proclamations, such as those for the Medal of Honor, from all capitals"? I wondered about this after coming across a case at Brock's Monument. Modal Jig (talk) 19:31, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Yup. As far as I know the only exceptions in these types of cases are Latin inscriptions, mostly on coins. Primergrey (talk) 21:46, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I remember that Latin inscriptions are not exempted: MOS:TEXT#Foreign terms, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting/Archive 2#Latin (language) and all-capitals. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

My mistake, yes. Primergrey (talk) 06:57, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

You weren't wrong. The policy and linked discussion both carve out a space for SMALLCAP LATIN in the case of inscriptions and particularly where u/v might be problematic. That said, most of the sources are going to use standard modern caps most of the time and that is what we should be using in place of smallcapping all Latin text. — LlywelynII 15:26, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, certainly. It's a problem as well when dealing with sources in German, where business names are often written in all-caps even if they're not acronyms. See here for an example I've recently come across. Blythwood (talk) 07:48, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

As noted above, I intend to work on small caps templating. The ones we have right now are total crap. One forces everything to lower case (affecting re-use, even copy-paste), and the other doesn't do anything to manage the HUGE SIZE IN YOUR FACE problem, etc. I have it worked out in my head how to build the options needed to use this style in a sane ways that MOS would accept (and which will agree with some conventional uses off-WP), but actually coding it will take time.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:32, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

VPP Discussion notice

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Article titles § Question about various "naming conventions" pages

It has come to my attention that we have two guideline pages that deal with essentially the same issues: MOS:CAPS (this page) and WP:NCCaps. When you have two guidelines covering the same territory, there is obviously a high potential for conflict between the two pages. Since the potential for conflict involves more than one page, I have raised the issue at WP:VPP#Guideline duplication (the potential for conflict) for broader community input. Please share your thoughts there. Blueboar (talk) 18:50, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

The VPP thread was closed as a duplicate; discussion continues (about, e.g. merging WP:NCCAPS into MOS:CAPS) at the WT:AT thread linked in the hatnote.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:39, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Should an "a-prefixing" guideline be added to MOS:CT?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should an "a-prefixing" guideline be added to WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Composition titles? Currently, different constructions are used for WP article titles: "Frog Went A-Courting", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", "Hear My Train A Comin'", "Here We Come A-wassailing", "Hold On, I'm A Comin'", "A-Hunting We Will Go", "Keep A-Knockin'", "The Times They Are a-Changing", "Train Kept A-Rollin'", etc. The current guideline addresses capitalization for composition titles, but not for "a-prefixing" ("a-Comin'" vs "A-Comin'", etc.).

A recent discussion has identified several options ("Hear My Train A Comin'" is used to illustrate the differences):

1) Titles should reflect what is found in a preponderance of reliable sources, regardless of capitalization or use of a hyphen – "Hear My Train A Comin'"

2) Titles should be standardized to a lower case "a" and hyphen – "Hear My Train a-Comin'"

3) Titles should be standardized to an upper case "A" and hyphen – "Hear My Train A-Comin'"

4) Titles should be standardized to an upper case "A" and hyphen, but lower case second part – "Hear My Train A-comin'"

5) Any combination of lower and upper case is acceptable, as long as a hyphen is used – 2), 3), or 4)

Which of these is preferable for a guideline for all composition titles? —Ojorojo (talk) 20:34, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

For me, option #5 is the most reasonable by far. That's the one I support. Chapa1985 (talk) 15:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support #3) "A-Comin'"— Using a hyphen is the most common and lower case should only be used with good reason. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support #1, but where there is disagreement or variation over what most reliable sources say, default to #2. Incidentally, this raises wider issues over "incorrect" or variable song titles - it would probably not be hard, for instance, to find an example of "Hear My Train a-Coming"; and I started an article on "I Walk on Guilded Splinters", the original but "wrong" title of the song. So, because of the variability element and because we should report what sources say rather than rewrite them according to our own "rules" or attempts at consistency (not something for which the English language is noted), we should stick to the most used version wherever possible. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:50, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

The problem with #1 is that since Wikipedia has its own page about capitalization rules, we should always try to have consistency. If not, then why even have this page with capitalization rules here at all? If people continue to use outside websites for song title capitalization references, they are going to contiune to clash against Wikipedia's rules, and we'll continue to have lots of arguments over and over. Chapa1985 (talk) 21:43, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Not "rules", "guidelines". As with any guideline, "...it will have occasional exceptions." Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:23, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Then in that case, the exceptions regarding capitalization of song titles need to be pointed out in the MOS:CT page. Chapa1985 (talk) 19:50, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support #3 - hyphenated for sure, ^{first letter of each hyphenated word to be} all upper case per The Gregg Reference Manual regarding titles. Atsme^📞📧 00:21, 3 January 2016 (UTC) ^{To clarify - I did not mean "all" letters should be uppercase, rather only the first letter of each word in a hyphenated word in titles. Example, the book, Frog Went A-Courtin, capitalizes the a-prefix in the title. [13] 17:16, 5 January 2016 (UTC)}

Atsme, I haven't been able to find anything under "a-prefixing" or "a-verbing". Could you quote the appropriate section? —Ojorojo (talk) 21:10, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Ojorojo, I found a Business Writing article that may work better because it explains the style in the Gregg, Microsoft and Chicago manuals: [14]. Also, Headline-style capitalization - For titles capitalized headline-style, Chicago now prefers capitalizing the second element in hyphenated spelled-out numbers (e.g., Twenty-Five). And, in general, Chicago no longer recommends making exceptions for short or unstressed words or to avoid the occasional awkward appearance. 8.157–59. [15] Atsme^📞📧 06:18, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the references. They don't specifically address "a-prefixing", but it appears that the first letter in hyphenated words should be capitalized. Gregg and Microsoft seem to prefer capitalization of the second word also; your Chicago quote also seems to agree "And, in general, Chicago no longer recommends making exceptions for short or unstressed words or to avoid the occasional awkward appearance [in the second word]". —Ojorojo (talk) 19:30, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment – It's been three weeks and #3 is the only option that has a resemblance of a consensus. Are there any strong objections to adopting this as the guideline? —Ojorojo (talk) 20:33, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd say go ahead with #3 then. Chapa1985 (talk) 15:15, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support 1/2 almost per Ghmyrtyle.
• # We should not be changing the titles of songs by hyphenating. We can change the capitalisation though.
• # We always adopt a "down" casing, where there is an option.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:30, 16 January 2016 (UTC).

• A request for closure by an uninvolved editor has been added to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#RfC: Should an "a-prefixing" guideline be added to MOS:CT?. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:35, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I came here from this request and can't see that any consensus can be drawn from this discussion. Probably best to stick with what the sources say where possible for now, and post an RfC in a more active venue. Sam Walton (talk) 22:54, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
    • We should stick with what the guideline says. It provides for accepting unusual stylization iff an overwhelming majority of sources all consistently agree for that particular case. That is sufficient and workable. If we need a more active venue, it's WT:MOS.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:49, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support 2 for the exact same reason we do not capitalize "the", "of", "from", etc. Option 3 is invalid and should be struck; MOS is not based on any specific external style guide, but considers the views of all major ones, when it's not already obvoius what to do. The "capitalize it" options fail MOS:CAPS: Do not capitalize without necessity, or when in doubt (there is obviously doubt here, and the capitalization is not necessary, so capitalizing this fails both tests). Agree this needs a more active venue; WT:MOS is the most obvious one.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC) Clarified, 03:06, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support #1, but whenever there is disagreement or variation over what most reliable sources say, default to #2 - always with the understanding that in each and every case italicisation is used to make clearer that these are the titles of artistic works. BushelCandle (talk) 09:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Only some kinds of titles go in italics; many (song titles, the most common locus of this kind of dispute) go in quotation marks. And which "reliable sources" do you mean? Are you including the entertainment industry press, who largely just do whatever the studios/labels want them to? Or do you mean RS that are totally independent of genre fankwankery? Aside from that, are you distinguishing in any way between mainstream journalism and academic material? And so on. Just saying "do what most reliable sources say" is like saying "do what is right"; it sounds good, but in practice is subjective and essentially meaningless.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:46, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
    • I don't mind quotation marks or italics, just so long as there is one or the other. And, fair point about my politician-speak ;) BushelCandle (talk) 16:31, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Acronyms section cleanup

I've cleaned up the acronyms section a bit to accomplish all of the following:

• Clarify that the FOO vs. FoO vs. Foo vs. foo options are not random, but have rationales and are based on reliable independent sources.
• Clarify that following sources on spelling does not mean following them on cutesy stylization, per MOS:TM (we needed to cross-reference MOS:TM, anyway, since many of the acronyms editors deal with are trademarks).
• Provide more examples, including of outlying cases (acronyms with "&", with numerals, etc.)
• Cross-reference WP:NOR, about not making up fake acronyms (one of the naming conventions pages mentions this, too, but people shouldn't do it in prose, either)
• Note that WP does not use the New York Times's bizarre "Unesco" and "Nato" style.
• Remove someone's anti-"initialism" vocabulary activism
• Perform misc. copyediting.
• Address probably the #1 acronym typo on Wikipedia, the sloppy use of aka for AKA or a.k.a.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:29, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I've made some changes. The style of "Unesco" or "Nato" is not particular to The New York Times, but is instead a standard practice in British writing, and is used by the likes of the BBC and The Guardian. The root of this is the distinction between acronyms (pronounced as if they were a word) and initialisms (each letter is pronounced individually), which is not followed by this style guide. RGloucester — ☎ 22:45, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

It's also less hit-you-between-the-eyes obtrusive and unreasonably emphatic on the page. Shades of am / PM. BushelCandle (talk) 09:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

When I get time, I'm going to work on some improvements to our small caps templates to see about using one to slightly reduce the size and or weight of acronyms. In the interim, consensus has not suddenly changed in favor of "Unesco" on WP. It's a journalism thing (you're right, I'd forgotten that The Guardian also does it), but an uncommon one, and it's virtually unknown in more formal writing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:29, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

If you ever finish that template, please ping me so I can start using it... BushelCandle (talk) 16:33, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

@RGloucester, @BushelCandle: {{Smallcaps2}} (shortcut: {{sc2}}), which I forgot I'd already created, does it: "She works at UNICEF". This matches the style of most modern non-fiction book publishing, and it does not screw up the copy-paste like many previous attempts at this did. I've just normalized all the case-transformation templates' documentation, including with a table that shows how their output differs and which ones do not work as probably expected (three of them should probably be TfDed because they don't work cross-browser).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:00, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I've already abused your newly discovered template at COMELEC where "COMELEC" is much less eye-watering and ugly when it naturally occurs so many times on that page now. Ta! BushelCandle (talk) 23:41, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

It is perfectly common in British formal writing, and not just a "journalism thing". I agree that Wikipedia should not and does not use this form, per WP:COMMONALITY. However, I have no qualms in saying that I personally prefer it. RGloucester — ☎ 20:14, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I find no evidence that "[i]t is perfectly common in British formal writing, and not just a "journalism thing".' Your own examples don't support the point and it is pretty easy, though tedious, to disprove (fortunately, the source list will be good for improving the Acronym article, or even writing a WP:SUMMARY split at Acronyms and initialisms in English, so I posted it all at Talk:Acronym#All-caps versus sentence-case styles.

The sentence-case style absolutely is a journalism thing (it evolved from the house style of radio/TV news broadcasting organizations, as a way to indicate to the presenter to pronounce the word as a word instead of spelling it out on the air). While British newspapers favor it, not all UK journalism organizations do so, and British academic publishers do not at all. In the US, it's almost exclusively the style of NYT and a few "un-AP" allies, and is quite rare. Canadian usage prefes all-caps style, too. All the relevant style guides recognize conventional excepts (laser, Anzac, Nabisco, etc.), and none still recommend "U.N.E.S.C.O." style.

The reasons the sentence-case style is poor for WP purposes are easily spelled out, should anyone want to try to raise bogus WP:ENGVAR claims:

• Too many readers do not parse it as an acronym and may need to re-read to understand what is meant in many cases. Zero editors have any confusion that "UNESCO" is an acronym. A minority might think "maybe this is sounded out as U-N-E-S-C-O", but WP is not a speech or a broadcast, and we can give a pronunciation key at the UNESCO article, anyway. Most of our articles do not have them (presumably out of WP:NOTDICT concerns).
• When sentence casing is for acronyms of made up of organization (or other proper name) initials, it falsifies the name's real-world spelling. NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, not the "National aeronautics and space administration". If it's conventionally (not just in some publisher's house style) spelled with sentence case, we should, too, however ("Anzac", "Amway") per the MOS:CAPS and MOS:TM rules to accept the stylization used in the vast majority of independent, reliable sources (an international test, not one run separately for North American and Commonwealth English sources, though it rarely conflicts with ENGVAR concerns, anyway; Anzac isn't "ANZAC" in AmEng just because NORAD is all-caps, or vice versa).
• It introduces unnecessary ambiguities (a lot). "Aids" is an everyday word, and "Nasa" is an ethnicity, a genus, and a placename. Many backronyms and forced acronyms are choses specifically because they do form already-exists words.
• Even the British journalism organizations promoting a sentence-casing rule for longer acronyms do not consistently follow their own stylesheets on it (they all sometimes use "NAFTA" instead of "Nafta", for example: [16], [17], [18]), probably because the down-casing is counterintuitive and pointless when applied to proper-name acronyms in writing, versus broadcasting (where it aids newscasters reading from teleprompters, and this is the actual origin of the style). Various acronyms that are said as words are also virtually never found in sentence case in sources (e.g. ASCII /ass-key/, and WYSIWYG /wiz-ee-wig/), even British journalism. It's not a convention at all; it's a would-be convention being advanced by specific publishers, most UK, a few US. To promote it on WP would be a WP:NPOV and WP:CRYSTALBALL problem (and we already went through that kind of "WP must obey our pet 'standard' that isn't really a standard" battleground before, e.g. with the campaign to capitalize common names of species.
• The sentence-case system doesn't really work for anything complex: many acronyms are partially spelled-out and partially pronounced word-like (USAID /yu-ess-ayd/, CD-ROM /cee-dee-rom/, etc.), which would lead to inconsistent and hard-to-parse camelcase messes ("USaid"? "USAid"? "CD-Rom"? "CD-rom"?), especially if the word-sounding part came first. Camelcased names are usually interpreted as commercial trademarks or other official names, especially since the dotcom boom and the tech industry's penchant for this style. Some cases are not spelled out or said as the word they look like, but have a totally different pronunciation ("IEEE" is "eye-triple-ee"). Others have two common pronunciations; "IRA" in the financial sense is said as both "eye-rah" and "I-R-A", with similar cases for "URL" and "LOL").
• Noting the amount of perennial fist-shaking about MoS's "use lower case for prepositions under 5 letters in titles of works" rule (which MoS did not make up), it would obviously be foolhardy for MoS to adopt an almost identical rule about acronyms.

PS: This means that "Unicef" cannot accurately be used as a search term when researching this, if any further research is needed. Because Economist Style Guideand Gregg aren't just house style but published for general use, there is no way to determine what subsequent publishers adopted from them their odd "rule" to only do something like "Unicef" when the acronym is made up of word parts that are more than initials from the original words (as in "Amtrak", and they're actually wrong about UNICEF, with is simply the initials of the organization's chartered name). Because it was shortened later to something that no longer spells out U-N-I-C-E-F, some publishers are apt to treat it simply as a name, "Unicef", not as an an acronym/initialism, even if they would not normally do "Unesco", and despite the fact that UNICEF itself officially all-caps it. "Unesco" is also a poor choice, because its spelling is too apt to be "normalized" to that of "Unicef" by those who sentence-case the latter. (UNICEF itself also all-caps its own name. Both organizations are reliable sources per WP:ABOUTSELF for their own names, and they raise no MOS:TM or MOS:CAPS issue, because they are not an odd stylization defying normal English rules; the situation is the exact opposite.) A good search term will need to be 5 letters long or longer, consist only of initials, be a proper-name abbreviation, be not so common as to have been genericized and reinterpreted as a word (like "radar"), and common enough to appear fairly often in news stories, internationally. "NAFTA" is one obvious choice.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:51, 12 February 2016 (UTC)