Why Titles Are Written Like This?
Why Titles Are Written Like This?
Why is it normal to capitalise every first letter of a word in titles now? Has it always been like this? Is it AI? Am i dumb?
Thank U 🧀🥦
28 comments
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How to Respond to a Question on Title Capitalization: A Brief Commentary
It isn't normal to capitalize every first letter... it's normal to capitalize nearly every first letter.
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articles and prepositions are exempt
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Yeah, little words aren't supposed to be capitalised, but I'm never quite sure which ones to leave off so usually I just capitalise everything.
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So whats the rule?
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Basic rules here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_case
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Treat others as you’d like to be treated.
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i before e except after c.
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It's been the standard for English titles for a very long time (at least the past hundred years, probably more).
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Is there a reason? It’s not very readable..
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In a time of handwriting, you could make clearer that This Was a Title without having to say it was a title or putting it in quotation marks.
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Because They're Supposed to Use Title Case
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I’m gonna start asking people which sacred house of style for Titles they follow now…
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The short answer is to distinguish titles from the main body of text (or synopsis, lede, etc.)
It doesn't need to be very readable because it's used sparingly, and it's more important that it stands out so you know what you're reading, etc.
How to Get Attention and Keep It.
The untrue story of an internet troll who thinks the damsels are lost and knights assholes trying to take advantage. by some guy whose definitely not the troll.
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This has been a thing for centuries at this point, though it seems to be falling out of fashion. You can find it in style guides already just after the turn of the 20th century and the practice certainly dates back further. Some publications online have stopped doing title case in favor of sentence case, but I'm not sure in physical media. Title Case sets the title apart, may be clearer or catchier at a distance (good for newstands and newsies, I guess?) and I find it easier to read in some cases. Some argue it stems from German which capitalizes all nouns, but I doubt that since this is done everywhere in German and not just in titles.
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It's always been that way. It's just proper grammar. IDK why... Shit was never explained why we do what we do in English, just that it is done. 🤷🏻♂️
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It's certainly not a universal thing either, no other language I know does it.
Once I asked on linguistics (or maybe English language) stackexchange about the origins of it, but it got deleted as duplicate of a related but definitely different question. Most satisfying stackexchange interaction
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Like What?
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It is normal. But it goes something like this: The Incredible Tale of the Tiny Red Dog.
Words like of, the, are, is etc. don't get a capital.
Sauce: MA in English Language, and voluntary journalist.
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28 comments