Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 February 3

= February 3 =

MOS on Title Case
MOS:5 insists that small prepositions embedded in (song, book, film) titles should be capitalized if, and only if, they are not functioning as prepositions.

The In Crowd and Carry On Constable are clear candidates. Swann in Love, Life on Mars and Venus in Furs are clearly noun-preposition-noun and written just so, but what about Come on Over and Paid in Full ?

Is there some straightforward test a simple User can apply ? Doug butler (talk) 21:53, 3 February 2023 (UTC)


 * We just go by how the work is capitalized/publicized by the work's creator(s). Clarityfiend (talk) 00:27, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Not quite. I recall a dispute over the old song "Everybody Works but Father". The publishers used a capital B. The MOS hounds here insisted that it be lower case. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:44, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * But 'but' is not capitalized in the scan used to illustrate the article; the article title's capitalization is in agreement with that of the published version. Shells-shells (talk) 05:25, 10 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Doug_butler -- "over" is capitalized in "Come on Over" because it's the last word in the title. AnonMoos (talk) 01:17, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * He's asking about the "on", not the "Over". --Viennese Waltz 09:09, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * In "The In Crowd&thinsp;", in is not a preposition but part of the noun in crowd, also spelled in-crowd. In "Carry On Constable", we do not see a preposition + noun; the parsing is as in "Carry on, constable!&thinsp;". The second part of a phrasal verb such as carry on is classified as a "particle"; see . The same can be said for come on, currently sense 9 on Wiktionary, for which one of the usage examples is, "You told me to come on over whenever I get the chance, and here I am!&thinsp;". --Lambiam 12:24, 4 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I was really asking about reverts performed by on some edits I made regarding the book title Come In Spinner, which to paraphrase Lambiam, is parsed "Come in, spinner&thinsp;!", an invitation or command (in the game of two-up) to the coin spinner to enter the ring and toss the pennies. Logic tells me it's a capital-I "in", and one of the most prestigious references to Australian literature (an OED publication) spells it just so, more than once, but Dan, a highly-regarded editor, has not self-reverted and I'm reluctant to get into a 3R, so letting it ferment a little. Doug butler (talk) 21:03, 4 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The simplest solution would be to just change the MOS to have all words in the yitles of works be capitalized.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 23:20, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I hope you're not serious. Doug butler (talk) 23:32, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm completely serious. Either capitalize every word or capitalize as you would an ordinary sentence. Everything else is just ridiculous and leads to arguments.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 00:01, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I understand. Many libraries index their contents in Sentence case. Not something I can handle, after 70 years of Title Case, but clearly it works for them.Doug butler (talk) 04:36, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Khajidha Nice idea, but, thanks to the WP:ENGVAR, some people's preferences are not the same as others; mine is what's in the MOS at the moment. Bazza (talk) 09:33, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Even simpler, render all letters of all article titles in capital letters: even fewer arguments! YIPPEE! --Lambiam 09:50, 5 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Khajidha -- the capitalization of "of", "a", "the" etc. in the middle of a title would be rather distracting, and you might not like it if you saw it. On the Web, headlines which capitalize minor words are a sign of software which is not sophisticated enough to do one of its assigned tasks very well... AnonMoos (talk) 19:39, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I find the NON-capitalization of such words distracting and don't like it. Thus why I made the suggestion. I really can't understand why this "capitalize all words except for this group of exceptions except when they fall into the exceptions to the exceptions" rule was ever developed or why anyone would continue to stick to it. Especially when there are multiple conflicting versions of it in use.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:36, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Then we would have to spell the American space agency NAASA. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:05, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Khajidha I find the capitalisation of all words distracting and don't like it. Thus why I'm happy with the current guide. I really can't understand why this "capitalise all words" rule was ever developed or why anyone would continue to stick to it. ;-)
 * Each to their own variant of English. There's probably a reason why my cultural norm was adopted as opposed to yours, or anyone else's, but I'm not fussed about finding out why. Bazza (talk) 13:16, 6 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The cover of the book in question has its title in ALL CAPS, otherwise there would be no controversy. I'm waiting on a bookseller friend to check the Title page just in case it resolves the question. Doug butler (talk) 23:56, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @ So what's the book? It might even be amongst my collection (catalogue update in progress, but in the low 5 figures). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.221.194.253 (talk) 12:50, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I think Doug is referring to Come in Spinner. I agree with him that in in the title should be capitalized as a "particle of a phrasal verb" per MOS:5. Deor (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, not something I have or can find a title page image of, but a partial extract from a later e-book edition (hope that works) includes an introduction by Florence James that uses capital "I" throughout. In any case, I agree with Deor above, and it seems a little less likely to be misread with a, shall we say, unfortunate meaning. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.221.194.253 (talk) 01:34, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It is really very common for the title on the cover to be in all caps. --Lambiam 17:10, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Your 5th example is a black swan: "Murder on the" are clearly Title case. Doug butler (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * ? --Lambiam 08:26, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Oops, I should have said the cover, on close examination, had "in the". Forgive an old plodder. Doug butler (talk) 12:51, 6 February 2023 (UTC)


 * There exist multiple scholarly articles about this book, and all of them use lowercase-in. --82.166.199.42 (talk) 09:37, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you. It does not change the argument on the basis of Wikipedia house style, but I should have placed less emphasis on the Oxford publication, which may very well have been dictated by their house style. I am particularly grateful for the Griffen-Foley article, which fleshes out the book's publication history wonderfully.
 * You may not have noticed that although the title of the Abstract to Marilla North's thesis has a lower-case "i", the Abstract is upper-case "I", as is every mention of the book in the thesis itself. Several others of those "scholarly articles" were not about the book, their "spinners" being mathematical models, roulette wheels and political "spinners". Doug butler (talk) 12:42, 6 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm less concerned by this issue than by the absence of a comma between "in" and "Spinner" (see Terminology table @ Two-up). As it was published, the title "Come in Spinner" makes little sense. (Such is the view of a latter-day literary critic who has missed the boat by over 70 years.) --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:03, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * As Doug and Lambiam pointed out above, the absence of the comma is also characteristic of the films in the Carry On ... series (although there are a few that don't need one). Punctuation or the lack of it in titles, with consequent effects on capitalization, is certainly a vexed question—Star Trek Into Darkness, for instance. Deor (talk) 21:34, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Or WB cartoons with the signature "That's All Folks!" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:01, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Compare also the title "Hit the Road Jack". "Dizzy, Miss Lizzy" got it right. --Lambiam 23:11, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, although the Beatles version omitted the comma. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:27, 6 February 2023 (UTC)