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Capitalization Rules for Titles from Grammarly (Optional)

Posted: May 11th, 2021, 1:02 pm
by Winston
Hi Everyone,
This is optional, but just wanted to share this with you. According to proper rules of English grammar, you aren't supposed to capitalize every word in a title. Some of you do that, like many Americans do, but it's considered bad form. So here are the capitalization rules for thread titles from Grammarly if you want to do it the correct way.

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/capitali ... he-titles/

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/capitalization-rules/

Basically, in titles, such as thread titles or article titles, you're not supposed to capitalize conjunction words like "to, at, and, the, for, but, or, by, of, in, on" unless they are the first or last words of the title. You are only supposed to capitalize the first letter of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. The rules also state that conjunctions that are longer than four letters should be capitalized, such as "Within" or "Without" for example. But not if they are four letters or less, such as "with". For more info, see the links above.

Btw, all this is optional. You don't have to follow these rules of course, since this forum is informal. But it looks better if you do. The thing is, when words like "and, or, of" are capitalized it looks weird and off. So lately I've been going through all my audio and video files (thousands of them) to fix such mistakes, since I'm a perfectionist with OCD, so stuff like that starts to annoy me, especially if I'm not in a happy environment, which makes me uptight, because NE Asia and America are very uptight cultures and environements of course, not free flowing or relaxed.

Anyway, hope you all learn something from this. Lots of people capitalize every single word in a title, including conjunction words like "of" which looks off. I hate seeing that big "Of" in a title for some reason. Looks out of place. Unless of course it's at the beginning or end of a title.

Btw, if there's a colon or dash in a title, like this "Title Name - Title Name" or "Title Name: Title Name" then the part after the colon/dash is treated like a new sentence, so you can begin with a capitalized conjunction again at the start of that part. Like this for example: "Getting Out of America - The Stuff You Need to Know". The word "The" is capitalized after the dash because it's like a new sentence. But if "the" is in the middle of the title, then it should be lowercase like this "Getting the Heck Out of America".

Re: Capitalization Rules for Titles from Grammarly (Optional)

Posted: May 11th, 2021, 3:26 pm
by rudder
Thanks. Those are details I've actually been curious about lately when emailing people.

Re: Capitalization Rules for Titles from Grammarly (Optional)

Posted: May 11th, 2021, 11:44 pm
by Cornfed
This is an interesting issue for some people. As far as I am concerned, anything I do regarding English usage is right by definition.

Re: Capitalization Rules for Titles from Grammarly (Optional)

Posted: May 12th, 2021, 6:40 am
by Winston
Don't you guys think it looks tacky when a title contains this: "Of The" or "And The"? That looks tacky. That's why reporters and journalists follow those guidelines above when capitalizing titles in their articles. They put conjunctions in lowercase unless it's the first or last word in the title. Doesn't "of the" and "and the" look far better and less tacky?

Re: Capitalization Rules for Titles from Grammarly (Optional)

Posted: May 12th, 2021, 12:39 pm
by Spencer
Winston wrote:
May 12th, 2021, 6:40 am
Don't you guys think it looks tacky when a title contains this: "Of The" or "And The"? That looks tacky. That's why reporters and journalists follow those guidelines above when capitalizing titles in their articles. They put conjunctions in lowercase unless it's the first or last word in the title. Doesn't "of the" and "and the" look far better and less tacky?
Yes agree sooo tacky use Of The or And The and so anoyingly why people use the bad spell and bad gramatical for this buthersom for prefectionalist wordman like wiseton so please aborders take more carfuly on writ of postings to follow rules if not dicklectical