Re: USAGE: Title Case [Was: USAGE: YAEUT: "proper"]

----- Original Message ----

From: Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
next letter uppercase!" than it is to write computer code that checks
a lexicon for part of speech information and an exceptions list, etc.

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Along the same lines, I've seen cataloging software for books, etc., that ignore "A"
and "The" at the beginning of titles for alphabetizing, but it's more unusual
for it to ignore articles in other languages (Le, La, Les, L', El, Der, Die,
Das, Den, Dem, Des, etc.). Even with just the English to deal with, a book
called "A is for Apple" would be put incorrectly under "I." And if the software
ignored foreign article and my DVD collection happened to include "Die Another
Day" and "Die Fledermaus," the catalog wouldn't know to put the first one under
D and the second under F unless the database had a language marker as well.
Ditto "Des Henkers Bruders" under H but "Des voisines" under D; "Les Lives"
under LE but "Les miserables" under M; etc. (Some of these examples are from
IMDB, which does put "Des Henkers Bruders" under H but "Des voisines" under D,
which makes me curious. They may have a separate, hidden database field for
"Alphabetize as...," which is
 the most obvious thing to do.).

Then there's what to do about articles about the band The The. :) Some style
manuals dictate lower case "the" in headlines even when it's part of a band
name, such as "Prince Attends the Beatles Concert." Challenge: Teach a word
processor how to automatically handle "Prince Attends the The Concert."

Such is the occasional nuisance of autocorrect. Another detail: Word (at least 2003
and forward) changes an apostrophe to the open-curl when after a space and
before a non-space, except before a two-digit number (it assumes that '09 is
meant to be a year, which correctly uses a close-curl); otherwise, it uses a
close-curl. So '100 Bottles of Beer' will start with a close-curl, but '99
Bottles of Beer' will start with an open-curl.

-- Paul

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