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Topic: Title Case for Song Names - Should I Capitalize "upon" in &q (Read 15684 times) previous topic - next topic
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Title Case for Song Names - Should I Capitalize "upon" in &q

Reply #25 –
Quote from: Soap on
Quote from: Gecko on
What about preserving the font?

What about preserving the font colour?
What about preserving the artist's breakfast?

This is a discussion on case.
It just seems odd to focus artistic intent so much on the case of a few letters and the preservation thereof, while at the same time dismissing other aspects of the graphical presentation. If you compromise one, I wouldn't worry too much about also compromising the other. Font is just one aspect and in some cases instances forces you to compromise (see example above).

Title Case for Song Names - Should I Capitalize "upon" in &q

Reply #26 –
The phrase "once upon a time" (capitalization deliberately eliminated) is considered an idiom in the English language, and as such, many English title capitalization guides recommend that you capitalize either the first letter of all words in an idiom, or capitalize all words you personally think appropriate.  In this case, perhaps the recommended capitalization remains unchanged whether you recognize the phrase as an idiom or not, but in situations like "i'm in love" (again, capitalization deliberately eliminated for discussion), recognizing the words "in love" as an idiom results in recommended capitalization of "I'm In Love".  YMMV.

Concerning artistic intent, I generally try to consider such such when I see the same punctuation and capitalization used by the artist for their name (a proper noun) across many situations, like "k.d. lang" (capitalized as I understand the artist likes it), but otherwise I stick with generalized title capitalization rules regardless of any fancy, unique or otherwise artistic use of capitalization in liner notes for song titles.  As with all rules, I allow myself to make a rare exception if a unique situation seems to merit it.  I always ignore font differences for practical reasons.

The only thing more complicated than discussing this topic is writing regular expressions to reflect whatever rules we each follow!

Title Case for Song Names - Should I Capitalize "upon" in &q

Reply #27 –
I capitalize every first letter in every word and name in all tags... I think it looks good and is consistent. I even have a script that checks for a "_[a-z]" regexp when tagging new songs so that I don't miss anything 

Regarding "The", it's usually quite clear which form the band used more often, and I use that on all their recordings regardless of what was used on a specific album ("Ramones", "The Clash", "Pixies", etc...)

Title Case for Song Names - Should I Capitalize "upon" in &q

Reply #28 –
What we really need is some way of testing how the capitalisation of titles affects the listening experience. Presumably it could not, in principle, be double blind, but there should be a way of making it TOS #8 compliant.

And a Happy New Year to young and old.

Title Case for Song Names - Should I Capitalize "upon" in &q

Reply #29 –
Wow    Thank you sooo much for your replies, guys!

I've read all of your replies and decided to capitalize "Upon" because it is natural to think that it is part of an idiom, but more importantly, I personally feel it looks nicer to capitalize it.  After all, this is my music collection, so I will not worry too much about the Chicago style from now on.

Thanks again!!!

Title Case for Song Names - Should I Capitalize "upon" in &q

Reply #30 –
I would start from this: Tags are used to catalog your collection. The purpose of a catalog is to quickly find files. For this capitalization does not matter. If you want other people to use your catalog, you might want to take common practice into consideration. Most people would capitalize every word in a title, so why not do this as well. When in doubt, look up what is most commonly used.

The cover of an album usually is a graphical artwork. It cannot be accurately represented by using a certain kind of capitalization. When it comes to books, you would not use the title as it is printed on the cover for the catalog entry. You might use the french tittle, or the library description if provided. Capitalizing every letter is very unusual. You would only do this for acronyms. I would think much the same applies to record. The only way to accurately represent the cover is a picture. The title should be taken from the label, the back or the booklet. In my opinion L.A. Woman should only be capitalized as L.A. WOMAN if the artist wanted to imply that WOMAN might be an acronym rather than the word "woman". There is some grey here, but I'm not changing my tags yet.

When it comes to names, the general rule is: a (wo)man is who (s)he says (s)he is. Again I would take my cue from the label, booklet or back rather than from the cover. When in doubt I would also check the orthography and capitalization in the copyright notice, as I think this is the part of the text least likely to have graphical embellishments.
 

Title Case for Song Names - Should I Capitalize "upon" in &q

Reply #31 –
Quote from: XaviraDax on
Most people would capitalize every word in a title, so why not do this as well.
I’m not sure about this estimate. I think a lot of people who have never really thought about title-case have at least unconsciously picked up at least some of the usual ‘industry’ conventions, because it’s common to see song names (etc.) written with small letters on short words—albeit sometimes on all short words (<4 characters), i.e. including verbs like is and other words that should be capitalised, rather than just on prepositions, articles, and conjunctions as is correct.

From there, it’s just a matter of taste whether one should lead with small letters on words of these types that are four letters long, or according to a few sources any length. Personally, I follow the convention of stopping after three letters, but this is pretty arbitrary. (I can’t seem to decide how I feel about longer words such as upon or even “The Chaos within the Silence”!)