How to Capitalize Headlines, Codified in a Flowchart

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/29/how-to-capitalize-headlines-c.html

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That covers it well enough. The more disturbing trend is de-cap-ing acronyms like NATO.

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“Is the word an article, i.e. I?”

Oops.

Also, pretty sure they should be using e.g. rather than i.e. Time for another viral flowchart!

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Oh, there’s a worse one: “He lased with his laser.”

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I love that he used all caps for the capitalization flowchart.

Is a large capital letter a capped cap?

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Except that it is “Vincent van Gogh” as per Dutch customs! https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

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And what if the word is hyphenated? I’ve read that the second word in not capitalised but it always looks weird to me

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I love that he used all caps for the capitalization flowchart.

(Warning: extreme rant ahead.)

Because That’s How It’s Done.

Rules for capitalizing titles are BULLSHIT!

Capitalize every single word and get on with your day.

Better yet, capitalize every word and get on with writing the body of your work.

While, yes, the title is important…it’s just the title.

(Also: decimate is TEN PERCENT!)

(End rant.)

(Sorry. I love the flowchart as a work of art, but what the title SAYS is MUCH more important than how it’s capitalized…)

(Now then-- flame away! I am fireproof and can take it!)

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I love that the chart is in all caps. That’s a nice touch.

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Just use sentence case. Works for the Guardian, and for the French.

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He used i.e. to be specific about what articles are, not as examples. He used e.g. everywhere else for examples. Both appear to be used correctly.

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That was not lost on me. I fight the scourge of all caps and adult manuscript. Learn cursive people! \partlyironicrant

Well, except for the odd lowercase “i” here and there (avoiding sans-serif l/i confusion?). There are a few city agencies that I deal with data transfers from that CAPITALIZE EVERYTHING, including names, addresses, email, etc…I assume to avoid any case-sensitivity errors. In the case of this flowchart it’s probably solely to avoid muphry’s law.

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If your learned cursive was as bad as mine, you also would write in all-caps like a 5th grader.

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One of my pet peeves in PowerPoint…Capitalizing Every Fucking Word In A Title!!

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I had pretty good handwriting until two years of architecture and formal block-caps for drafting.

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Yes, and that’s covered later in the flowchart. It was a poor example to use.

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What part of “there are many internets, but only one Internet” don’t journalists and reporters understand?

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dont-tell-me

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But the paper is not called Guardian, it is called The Guardian.