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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 87.102.169.130 (talk) at 12:13, 11 May 2020 (→‎Proposal: allow capitalization of official names of organisms: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Capitalization discussions ongoing [keep at top of talk page]

Add new items at top of list; move to Concluded when decided, and summarize the conclusion. Comment at them if interested. Please keep this section at the top of the page.

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Concluded

Extended content

Memes and aphorisms as titles

Help me understand

How are we to understand the examples in this bullet point. There seems to be, at minimum, a word missing:

  • Non-trademarked acronyms that have become assimilated into English as everyday words may be written as common nouns when it is conventional to do so (e.g. scuba and laser, but ZIP Code and bank PIN).

I thought it was trying to say that scuba and laser shouldn't be capitalized but ZIP Code and bank PIN were exceptions and should be. So I changed it to read:

  • Non-trademarked acronyms that have become assimilated into English as everyday words may be written as common nouns when it is conventional to do so (e.g. scuba and laser, but not ZIP Code nor bank PIN).

Deor reverted this saying, "Change said that ZIP & PIN were wrong. That's not correct." I'm not sure I understand this either. ~Kvng (talk) 18:25, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like an English-language fluency matter. The original text is correct. In longer, pedantic form, it could be "use scuba and laser, but by contrast use ZIP Code and bank PIN". Deor is correct that your edit, while well-meaning, reversed the actual instructions. Your version indicates "use scuba and laser, and do not use ZIP Code or bank PIN". That is, your "I thought it was trying to say ..." summary is exactly what it's saying. If you write "zip code" or "bank pin", that's a style and clarity problem, because these are treated as acronyms, while the average person treats "laser" and "scuba" as regular words and doesn't even know they are acronyms at all. When in doubt, consult multiple dictionaries. If most of them prefer a term lower-case, then use lower case, and vice versa.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:14, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I understand now and I have improved my previous contribution. ~Kvng (talk) 15:12, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, as a native English speaker, although not an American, I would definitely write zip code as until this discussion and the edits that led to it, I never realized the "ZIP" in "ZIP code" was an acronym (it seems almost like a backronym) and I don't really see how if it were written as a plain word there would be any way it could be confused as referring to something else. I've never heard anyone refer to "zip" without following it with "code" in this context (as in I cannot imagine anyone saying "I need to mail you something, what's your zip?"), whereas people certainly talk about their PINs (absent "bank"), which could I guess be mistaken for their pins. That is, I'm not sure why we would maintain "ZIP code" in all-caps if we use lowercase "scuba" and "laser". For that matter, not sure why anyone would capitalize the "C" in "ZIP Code". The notion that it's a proper noun at this point is a huge stretch. —Joeyconnick (talk) 19:12, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Joeyconnick. I looked up capitalization within Google Books, and it looks like 'zip code' is about twice as popular as 'ZIP code', which overtook 'ZIP Code' around 2005. I also just searched the last 16 years of my email and the only instances of 'ZIP' that I could find came from one of two sources: Amazon.com or the USPS itself. Utility companies, streaming services, food delivery services, hotels, and everyone else all use 'zip'. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ 23:52, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This has been discussed at Talk:ZIP Code. ~Kvng (talk) 15:31, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What random people are doing in someone's e-mail is irrelevant; they are not reliable sources. Since we know for a fact that "ZIP Code" is the name of an official spec/standard and thus a proper name (at least at one level), and we know that ZIP is an acronym for Zoning Improvement Plan and thus properly in all-caps, it would take an overwhelming majority of near-consistent reliable source usage to override two MoS rules at once and treat this as "zip code". By contrast, you probably cannot find a dictionary or other modern source anywhere that still writes SCUBA / S.C.U.B.A. or RADAR / R.A.D.A.R. We can be pretty sure that "Z.I.P." is dead, because that style barely exists for anything today other than "U.S.", and even that is on its last legs.

This n-gram would seem to indicate (aside from the total death of "Z.I.P. [c|C]ode") that if you combine sources that understand this is a proper name with an acronym in it (thus "ZIP Code") with those that know it's a proper name but either don't know ZIP is an acronym or have a house style (as many do) to write as words not as initialisms anything that is a "word acronym" not sounded out as letters (thus "Zip Code"), plus sources that realize it's an acronym but not that it's a proper name (thus "Zip code"), it's about the same number of total sources that seem to pretend to understand neither that it's a proper name nor that it contains an acronym (thus "zip code"). And in reality, it's probably more that the house style in question is just more anti-capitalization that WP is, and seeks to down-case everything its writers think they can get away with down-casing. Regardless, the kind of near-perfect consistency for "zip code" or even "Zip Code" is just not there (even after you factor in a bit of false-positive for "Zip Code" instances appearing in title-case headings when the same writer might do "zip code" in running prose). There might be enough doubt here to go with "ZIP code", on the basis that enough sources are dropping the capital C in both "ZIP code" and "zip code" cases, plus the fact that a specific instance of a ZIP code isn't a proper name; it could be seen as "a ZIP code" (a code in the text string sense) within the "ZIP Code" in the system sense. But if you just trawl through Google News and Google Books results, you'll see total chaos; all of these variants are frequent. Since there's nothing remotely like a real-world consensus that "zip" has been re-assimilated as a non-acronym, there's no case to be made for that spelling here, even there's maybe a weak one for "code", at least in some contexts.

PS: Linguistically, the cases are not similar at all: things like scuba, sonar, radar, and laser do not coincide with pre-existing words; the fact that ZIP does (and the word in any of its senses has no relation to ZIP codes) makes it especially difficult for it to transition into a word from an acronym. Similarly, all the attempts by certain news publishers [principally British, but The New York Times is also in on it] to rejigger AIDS (the HIV disease) as "Aids", out of their weird habit of writing things like "Nato", "Nasa" and "Unesco", have come to rather little avail, in large part because "aids" is already a verb with little in common with AIDS (a rather opposite relationship, really, since a frequently fatal autoimmune disease doesn't help/assist anyone :-).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:18, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch names starting with an apostrophe

The article Gerard 't Hooft includes sentences like

't Hooft is most famous for his contributions to the development of gauge theories in particle physics.

My first reaction was that this should be capitalised at the start of a sentence ('T Hooft is most famous...), as would be done with any other lower-case particule like de or von. However, my changes were reverted by User:TimothyRias. I now notice that on other articles like 's-Hertogenbosch, the first letter is not capitalised even at the start of a sentence. Is this correct? And if so, should MOS:LCITEMS be amended to note this exception? Opera hat (talk) 15:53, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Dutch article is very consistent in its use of lowercase, so we should follow. I'm not sure whether its' worth including in MOS:LCITEMS because it's very rare. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:50, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A peculiar breach of conformity

So according to WP:TOURDAB and following sections, editors in the area of pop music tours have been naming the tour articles consistently with title case, in conformity with that guideline. For example, Category:Led Zeppelin concert tours, Category:Pink Floyd concert tours, and Category:Pearl Jam concert tours, except for a stray parenthetical disambiguation, "Tour" is always capitalized. This seems counterintuitive to MOS:CAPS. Granted, some bands give their tours proper names, and in the case of a proper name, a tour may be given title case. But absent a proper name, when Wikipedia is just throwing something on an article title, it seems to me that "tour" or "world tour" should be lower case. Comments? Elizium23 (talk) 17:52, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:DOCTCAPS

I have a question about this bit:

Doctrines, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems of thought and practice, and fields of study are not capitalized, unless the name derives from a proper name: lowercase republican refers to a system of political thought; uppercase Republican refers to a specific Republican party (each being a proper name).

I'm a bit confused by the example, since it seems to be saying that 'republican' and 'Republican' are proper names, but in fact 'republican' is an adjective, not a proper name. And 'Republican' can be either a common noun (as in 'Many Republicans voted at my polling place') or an adjective (as in 'That was a very Republican thing to say') depending on context. But it's not really a proper name ever, though 'Republican Party' is a proper name of a party. Can someone clarify what this is supposed to mean? Shinealittlelight (talk) 17:35, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Shinealittlelight: I believe the (each being a proper name) is meant to refer to uppercase Republican refers to a specific Republican party only, i.e., each of Republican Party (Liberia), Republican Party (Malawi), Republican Party (United States), etc..
As you said, as an adjective, it can be either "republican ideology" (common, lower-case), while in "the Republican candidate for the 99th district of Ohio", it is proper and upper-case. Both noun examples could go either way, depending on the exact meaning, too. In the US, at least, common usage of the term would usually refer specifically to members of the party (and be cap'd). —[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:26, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@AlanM1: Thank you for the clarification; that definitely makes sense. The other question I have about this policy relates to these examples: the Me Too movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, the Occupy movement, and so on. Do you think that these should be capitalized according to this policy? I can't tell whether these are cases that should be capitalized under the "derives from a proper name" condition. Shinealittlelight (talk) 23:27, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Shinealittlelight: It doesn't seem so, but the articles are at Occupy Wall Street, Me Too movement, and Black Lives Matter, probably because they are normally cap'd in sources (not always [ever?] a good reason for style choice here, though). The capitalization does seem to help in parsing a sentence, especially when parts of it are cap'd for other reasons, e.g., "... the occupy Wall Street crowds ..." is confusing if the term is not already familiar to the reader. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:52, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@AlanM1: I see, so you would see these cases as exceptions to the quoted policy? I'm new to policy discussions; are we just providing a rule of thumb here? Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:52, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Shinealittlelight, it is well worth remembering that the Manual of Style along with all its numerous subsections is not policy. It is instead a guideline which begins with the following sentence: "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." This is such a case. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Got it, thank you. Fwiw, I think a guideline which says that proper names of movements ('Me Too', 'Occupy', 'BLM', etc.) should be capitalized, while descriptions referring to movements (e.g., 'the environmentalist movement', 'the feminist movement', 'the conservative movement', etc.) should not be capitalized. It seems to me that this would fit all of the examples without exceptions. Shinealittlelight (talk) 01:17, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It is already well-established, Shinealittlelight, that proper names are capitalized. Why do we need special language for "movements"? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:53, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the way this is currently written, it says that "...movements ... are not capitalized". So then when we have a proper name of a movement (like 'Me Too' or 'Black Lives Matter'), if we want to follow sources and capitalize, we have to make an exception to this MOS guideline. But on my approach, no such exception is needed, since these are examples of proper names of movements. So, in effect, I agree with you that proper names should be capitalized, and I'm suggesting that the guideline here be restricted to accord with this fact: restricted, in other words, so that it only applies to definite descriptions that refer to movements--descriptions like 'the environmentalist movement' and so on.Shinealittlelight (talk) 11:07, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But then it's not entirely clear why it should be "the Me Too movement", as in our article Me Too movement, rather than "the me too movement". It's not one specific organization, which argues against capitalizing, but on the other hand it's not as general as "environmentalist". Peter coxhead (talk) 11:24, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Another example is 'Protestant'. This term is capitalized because it derives from the proper name of a movement: the Protestant Reformation, though this is not the name of a specific organization. As Cullen328 says, it is well-established that proper names are capitalized. And of course anything can have a proper name, whether it's a movement, an organization, or whatever. Shinealittlelight (talk) 11:47, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Black Lives Matter now has a formal structure, and is therefore a proper name. #MeToo is not a proper name. But, it started as a hashtag with caps. It's also difficult to parse in a sentence with no caps as the words are so common. I would call that an exception. I believe environmentalist movement, feminist movement, etc. are compound nouns and not proper. The explanation in MOS:DOCTCAPS looks fine to me. Obviously, there are exceptions, and RS are where one looks for such. O3000 (talk) 16:35, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, they're compound nouns, glad we agree about that. My idea is that those ones should not be capitalized, but that proper names--whether of movements or organizations--should be capitalized, like BLM (which has always been capitalized, even before it was a mere movement), Occupy, Me Too, and the Protestant Reformation. Shinealittlelight (talk) 17:44, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The problem that brought you here (Talk:Antifa_(United_States)#RfC:_Capitalization) is with the definition of proper noun, not capitalization. We all agree that proper nouns are capitalized, but antifa is not a proper noun as it is a movement, not an organization. It is a class, not a single entity. O3000 (talk) 18:22, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether movements are "single entities" and I don't think it's relevant. Movements, whatever they are, can have proper names; definition not needed, see examples above. Shinealittlelight (talk) 18:30, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know your purpose. But, you are spending a great deal of editor time on trying to capitalize one word that highly respected RS aren't capitalizing and the RfC is currently 7:2 agin. Let me politely suggest that it's WP:deadhorse time. O3000 (talk) 22:01, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've expressed an opinion on how to improve this style guideline. You expressed a contrary opinion. We'll see if others have something to say. Shinealittlelight (talk) 22:21, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: allow capitalization of official names of organisms

The current Wikipedia policy is at a cross with the common policy of scientific literature and most hobbyist literature. Outside Wikipedia, common names of species are capitalized. This is to distinguish a species from a descriptive name. E.g. Little Owl is a particular species Athene noctua and little owl is any of several tens of species of small owls, or a chick of a large owl. Worse, the current Wikipedia policy puts competent people off contributing to Wikipedia, see e.g. the discussion: https://www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=3998544&postcount=292 and the following posts: https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=373802&page=12 As not to waste the effort, this policy can be allowed only in new edits.

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