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 🧀🥦
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.
articles and prepositions are exempt
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.
So whats the rule?
Basic rules here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_case
That was very interesting actually, thanks.
Treat others as you’d like to be treated.
I think he wants to know The Golden Rule
Isn’t that the one about a nice spiral shape?
that’s the golden ratio. the Golden Rule is when people pee on each other as a kink
That’s a golden shower. The golden rule is that it’s not gay when it’s in a 3 way
i before e except after c.
Such a weird rule
The same reason we capitalize peoples’ names like that, since a title is the proper name of a written work.
It’s kinda weird that this makes perfect sense.
I wonder if people were never taught this, or if they just forget everything. Third grade for me…
In my native language just the first word gets capitalized in a title. I don’t think anyone ever explained to me why English capitalizes (almost) every word.
It’s been the standard for English titles for a very long time (at least the past hundred years, probably more).
Is there a reason? It’s not very readable…
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.
Because They’re Supposed to Use Title Case
I’m gonna start asking people which sacred house of style for Titles they follow now…
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.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.
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
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. 🤷🏻♂️
Like What?
It isn’t normal outside of names and acronyms
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.
