UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters: Difference between revisions

{{see also|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Seasons}}

In the names of scientific and mathematical concepts, only proper names (or words derived from them) should be capitalized: ''[[Hermitian matrix]]'' or ''[[Lorentz transformation]]''. However, some established exceptions exist, such as ''[[abelian group]]'' and ''[[Big Bang]] theory''.

==Animals, plants, and other organisms==

==Geological periods==

 

Doubts frequently arise when referring to regions, such as ''eastern Spain'' and ''Southern California''. If these have attained the status of proper names (as with ''[[North Korea]]'', ''[[Southern California]]'' or ''[[Western Europe]]''), then the direction word is capitalized. Otherwise it is not, as with ''eastern Spain'' or ''southwest Poland''. If you are not sure whether a region has attained proper-name status, assume it has not.

Follow the same convention for related forms: a person from the [[Southern United States]] is a ''Southerner''.

(Notice that compound compass points are usually joined in [[American English]], for example ''northwest'', while in [[British English]] they are sometimes written as separate words or hyphenated, as in ''north-west''. This also affects names of regions such as ''[[Southeastern United States]]'' and ''[[South East England]]''.)

* Accepted full names of wars, battles, revolts, revolutions, rebellions, mutinies, skirmishes, risings, campaigns, fronts, raids, actions, operations and so forth are capitalized ([[Spanish Civil War]], [[Battle of Leipzig]], [[Boxer Rebellion]], [[Action of July 8, 1716]], [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]], [[Operation Sea Lion]]). The generic terms (war, revolution, battle) take the lowercase form when standing alone ({{xt|France went to war}}; {{xt|The battle began}}; {{xt|The raid succeeded}}). As a rule of thumb, if a battle, war, etc. has its own Wikipedia article with capitalized name, the name should be capitalized in articles linked to it as it is in the article name.

* Proper names of specific [[military awards and decorations]] are capitalized ({{xt|Medal of Honor}}, {{xt|Victoria Cross}}).

==Musical and literary genres==

{{Shortcut|MOS:GENRECAPS}}

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use only source-attested acronyms; [[WP:No original research|do not make up]] new ones (for example, the [[World Pool-Billiard Association]] is the WPA, and it is not referred to as the "[[Women's Professional Billiard Association|WPBA]]").

Similarly, when showing the source of an [[acronym]] or [[abbreviation#Syllabic abbreviation|syllabic abbreviation]], emphasizing the letters that make up the acronym is undesirable:

Avoid writing with [[all caps|all capitals]], including [[small caps]], when they have only a stylistic function. Reduce them to one of the other [[title case#Headings and publication titles|title cases]] or normal case, as appropriate.

* Reduce newspaper headlines and other titles from all caps to [[letter case#Usage|sentence case]] or title case. For example, replace the headline "WAR BEGINS TODAY" with {{xt|"War begins today"}} or {{xt|"War Begins Today"}}.<ref>E.g.: {{cite news |work=The New York Times |url= http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0910.html#article |title=Troops Use Machine Gun on Boston Mob; 5,000 Guarding City as Riots Continue; City Acclaims Parade of Fighting First |accessdate=January 8, 2009 |date=September 10, 1919}}</ref>

* Reduce proclamations, such as those for the [[Medal of Honor]], from all capitals.

* Reduce text written in all capitals in trademarks – ''see [[WP:Manual of Style/Trademarks]]''.

* Reduce Latin quotations and terms from all capitals.<ref>The alphabet in which Latin was originally written had no lower case.</ref> ''See also [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Foreign terms|WP:Manual of Style/Text formatting §&thinsp;Foreign terms]].''

* Acronyms and initialisms {{see above|Acronyms|short=y}}

* In religion, renderings of the [[tetragrammaton]]; ''see [[Template:LORD]]''

* In linguistics and philology, [[interlinear gloss]]ing of grammatical morphemes (as opposed to lexical morphemes), and transcription of [[logogram]]s (as opposed to phonograms)

* Certain citation styles (e.g. that of the Linguistic Society of America or Bluebook) require that certain parts of the citation, such as author names in alphabetical reference sections be written in small caps. If an editor has chosen this style, it should be respected per [[WP:CITEVAR]].

 

{{main|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks}}

 

 

 

 

 

Some individuals do not want their personal names capitalized. In such cases, Wikipedia articles may use lower case variants of personal names if they have regular and established use in reliable third-party sources (for example, [[k.d. lang]]). When such a name is the first word in a sentence, the rule for [[#Initial letters in sentences and list items|initial letters in sentences and list items]] should take precedence, and the first letter of the personal name should be capitalized regardless of personal preference.

 

For proprietary names such as [[eBay]], see [[#Trademarks|Trademarks]] above.

If an article title begins with such a letter that needs to be in lower case (as in the above examples), use the {{tl|lowercase}} template or equivalent code. Note that it is not currently possible to make [[Wikipedia:Category|categories]] display with an initial lowercase letter in an article's category box. Hence the link to [[:Category:eBay]] at the foot of the article [[eBay]] must display as "EBay". Similarly the article title [[eBay]] will be displayed as "EBay" in the category listing.

==''Anglo-'' and similar prefixes==

Most words with prefixes such as ''Anglo-, Franco-,'' etc., are capitalized. For example, ''Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-French'' and ''Anglo-Norman'' are all capitalized. However, there is some variation concerning a small number of words of French origin. In French, these words are not capitalized, and this sometimes carries over to English. There are variations by country, and since editors often refer to only one dictionary, they may unwittingly contravene [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Varieties of English|WP:Manual of Style §&thinsp;Varieties of English]] by changing usage to that of their own country. In general terms, Americans are most favourable to capitalization and Canadians least favourable, with other countries falling somewhere in between. The main exceptions to the capitalization rule are the following.<ref>Sources have been consulted for the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, but not for Ireland or South Africa. Sources: U.S.: ''Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary'', 10th ed., ''The New Oxford American Dictionary''. Canada: ''The Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', ''Gage Canadian Dictionary''. UK: ''The Oxford Dictionary of English'' (2nd edition revised), ''The Concise Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary'' (English–French). Australia: ''The Australian Oxford Dictionary''. New Zealand: ''The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary''.</ref>

* ''anglicism, gallicism'', etc. These words are often, but not always, capitalized. ''Anglicism'' is less likely to be capitalized in Canada.

* ''anglicize, gallicize,'' etc. ''Anglicize'' is often capitalized in the U.S., and sometimes in other countries. ''Gallicize'' is often capitalized in the U.S., and usually capitalized in other countries.

* ''anglophile, francophile,'' etc. Words in this category are usually capitalized both as nouns and adjectives, except in Canada, where they sometimes are.

* ''anglophone, francophone,'' etc. These words are often capitalized in the U.S. as adjectives, and usually as nouns. They are usually not capitalized in other countries, whether as nouns or adjectives.

For [[title case]], the words that are not capitalized (unless they are the first or last word of the title) are:

* [[Article (grammar)|Articles]] (''a'', ''an'', ''the'')

* Short [[grammatical conjunction#Coordinating conjunctions|coordinating conjunctions]] (''and'', ''but'', ''or'', {{nobr|''nor''{{hsp}};}} also ''for'', ''yet'', ''so'' when used as conjunctions)

* [[Preposition and postposition|Prepositions]] containing four letters or fewer (''as'', ''in'', ''of'', ''on'', ''to'', ''for'', ''from'', ''like'', ''over'', ''with'', etc.) but see below for instances where these words are not used as prepositions

* The word ''to'' in [[infinitive]]s.

* Every [[adjective]], [[adverb]], [[noun]], [[pronoun]] and [[Conjunction (grammar)#Subordinating conjunctions|subordinating conjunction]] (''Me'', ''It'', ''His'', ''If'', etc.)

* Every [[verb]], including forms of ''to be'' (''Be'', ''Am'', ''Is'', ''Are'', ''Was'', ''Were'', ''Been'')

** Particles of [[phrasal verb]]s (e.g. "Give Up the Ghost", "Puttin' On the Ritz")

** The first word in a [[compound preposition]] (e.g. "Time Out of Mind")

If a work is known by its first line of text and lacks a separate title, then the first line, rendered in [[sentence case]], should be used as its title.

* An example of this would be ''[[Remember not, Lord, our offences]]'', a musical setting of excerpted passage from a liturgical text: