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Viewing Title Capitalization in the English LanguageTitle Capitalization in the English Language
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By Carsten Cumbrowski Titles of blog posts and web pages are very important. It essential to make a title appealing and interesting at the same time, because it is usually the first thing people notice when they see your post or web page in the search results of search engines, feed readers (blogs), and news aggregators. Interesting about titles in the English language is also the fact that they follow different capitalization rules for the words used in the title compared to the capitalization rules of regular content. A simplified but wrong rule is to capitalize every single word in the title. It does look awkward in most cases, independent of the fact that it is just wrong to do it that way. Using gut feeling is one way a lot of people do it, but following the specific rules that state which word needs to be capitalized and which word does not is probably a better way of doing it. Most people probably heard about these rules and had them in a subject at one point in time in school. The people who had it in school can consider this information a 'refresher', especially if it has been awhile since you learned it. The Rules In titles of songs or albums and band names, blog posts, or articles, the standard rule in the English language is to capitalize words that: 1. Are the first or the last word in the title 2. Are not conjunctions ('and', 'but', 'or', 'nor'), adpositions ('to', 'over'), articles ('an', 'a', 'the'), or the 'to' in infinitives. Conjunctions Coordinating conjunctions are pairs of conjunctions which work together to coordinate two items. English examples include: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so, both ... and, either ... or, neither ... nor, and not (only) ... but (... also). Subordinating conjunctions, also called subordinators, are conjunctions that introduce a dependent clause; English examples include: after, although, if, unless, and because. Another way for remembering is the mnemonic 'BISAWAWE': 'because', 'if', 'so that', 'after', 'when', 'although', 'while', and 'even though'. Adposition An adposition is an element that combines syntactically with a phrase and indicates how that phrase should be interpreted in the surrounding context. 'Adposition' is a general term that includes the more specific labels preposition, postposition, and circumposition, which indicate the position of the adposition with respect to its complement phrase. Adpositions are among the most frequently occurring words in languages that have them. Examples: of, to, in, for, on, with, as, by, at, from Articles The words: the, a, and an Infinitives The infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to. Therefore, 'do' and 'to do', 'be' and 'to be', and so on are infinitives. Conclusion There are always borderline cases, so I would not worry about it too much. However, it helps with the decision if you keep the above rules in mind. About the Author: Carsten Cumbrowski is an author of articles about numerous subjects. However, he writes primarily about Internet marketing. He is also a blogger who writes for ReveNews.com and SearchEngineJournal.com. More articles by Carsten Cumbrowski can be found at his website, Cumbrowski.com. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com |
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