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When you write out a title (for instance, of a song), do you capitalize each word? Or do you prefer to put things like articles and prepositions in lower case? I personally prefer the latter ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") for aesthetic reasons. Is there a stylebook standard for this?
And if it is a song by k. d. lang or a story by e. e. cummings, should the title not eschew all capitals if deference to the author? Should it matter whether k. d. lang is writing her own songs?
Sometimes it's hard to tell just what rule the writer prefers. Checking the track listing on the back of the Beatles "White Album" CD, I see these songs using the rule "capitalize every word except articles, prepositions and and":
- Back in the U.S.S.R.
- The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
- Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
but these others using "capitalize only the first word of the title":
- I'm so tired
- Why don't we do it in the road?
And "Happiness is a Warm Gun" seems to follow some other rule altogether (I've never heard of including is among those "short words that you don't capitalize").
(The rest of the titles on the album have all words capitalized but contain no words that would indicate which rule is in force.)
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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