Title Case
Mintsauce (1004 pencils) | Thu, 2010-01-14 15:46I've always wondered about this, and have my own opinions, but I'd like to put this to the Creative Bits community.
What is the correct use of Title Case?
- The Brown Fox Is A Lazy Dog On Steroids.
- The Brown Fox is a Lazy Dog on Steroids.
- The brown Fox is a lazy Dog on Steroids.
- THe BRoWN FoX iS a LaZy DoG oN STeRoiDS - okay jusy kidding about this one.
And hey, because we all need some visual reference for fun:
He actually does jump over the lazy dog.
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It all depends on things like style guides, context, consistency and, potentially, the aesthetic and personality considerations of the piece as a whole (This is most obvious with option 4).
Option 2 would be my choice out of the four as it is easier on the eye than the others. But option 1 is equally valid.
Option 3 stresses the words in a confusing way (though some languages do prefer capitalised nouns).
option 2 is generally considered more correct.
option 1 is what most software does. it's also what many newspapers use, but i believe that's because they don't want lower case letters on second lines (or something to that effect).
alex is correct that "it depends" is the proper answer. but i think option 2 is far more common and accepted in the non-news industry.
there is a script for indesign called "smart title case" that does option 2.
#2
My opinion of title case is:
Verbs should not be capitalised, unless they are the first word in a sentence,
Nouns should be.
living on dreams and custard creams.
Verbs can be capitalized.
Joe Wept at the Sight of His Mother
is better than
Joe wept at the Sight of His Mother.
lower case "w" in wept looks awkward.
agreed.as a visual it is more pleasing.
How it reads is another matter.
I think the latter conveys his emotion of crying better. When you cry, unless you burst into tears, it's usually a gradual thing. Therefore I think the lowercase w gives a better rhythm.
living on dreams and custard creams.
its' not really a visual issue, it's a grammatical issue.
2
"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber
I agree, #2 would be your best bet most of the time. I've looked at the Wikipedia article on title case before, though, and it really is a pretty flexible thing.