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Re: Help! Need official support for non-standard capitalization
Subject:Re: Help! Need official support for non-standard capitalization From:anne -at- visi -dot- com To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Fri, 3 Mar 2000 18:58:56 -0600 (CST)
Success! (Partial, at least.) I have found an acceptable ruling on
capitalization from a well-known style guide - one that I can use, if
necessary, to counter the stodgy guidelines in the "New York Times
Manual of Style and Usage."
From the Chicago Manual of Style, 13th edition (1982 - I buy my books used):
CAPITALIZATION (7.3 - 7.4, page 150)
"Intelligent editors realize that no one set of rules in the area of
capitalization can be universally applicable. ... [The editor] must
therefore establish a logical and acceptable style and must root out
any inconsistencies of capitalization..."
"Rules of capitalizing or lowercasing specific names or terms can
never be final. The editor, understanding the nature of the work,
must use discretion, judgement, and intuition in deciding when to
follow the pattern and when to depart from it."
Hooray for the University of Chicago Press!
And thanks, techwhirlers, for the many good suggestions and moral support
- it helped me decide to pursue this one rather than letting it drop.
(Current status: The PR firm is now "revisiting" this standards issue...)
Thanks,
Anne Chenette,
anne -at- visi -dot- com
>
> I need some help to challenge the status quo on the capitalization of
> a company name.
>
> I just started a job with e.Thingummy, Inc. (Note: names have been
> changed to protect the innocent...)
>
> However, in marketing materials and white papers, the current PR firm
> uses "E.Thingummy" when the company name starts a sentence.
>
> I'm concerned about the confusion factor of this capitalization shift,
> but was told that this capitalization conforms to the New York Times'
> standards.
>
> Can anyone help provide a reference to any respected standard-setting
> body that might allow the preservation of an initial lower-case letter
> in a company name?
>
> (If I'm going to start by making waves, I'd like to have something
> official to back me up...)
>
