Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 29

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Scripture

Proposed revision to the section "Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents" to add "scripture" to the sentence "The adjective biblical should not be capitalized." Something like, "The term scripture and the adjectives biblical and scriptural should not be capitalized." IP user 71.246.96.74 has changed "Christian Greek scriptures" to "Christian Greek Scriptures" in the article New Testament and there is no Caps guideline to justify a revert. - cheers - Epinoia (talk) 02:22, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

@Epinoia: There is a caps guideline to justify a revert, namely MOS:CAPS's opening rule: WP doesn't capitalize anything unless reliable sources almost always capitalize it. While the suggested revision wouldn't be "bad", on the face of it, we can't really try to account for every single case, separately, that some WP:RANDY will try to capitalize, because there is virtually nothing that won't be over-capitalized by someone, somewhere, usually in mimicry of what they see in a highly specialized source (e.g. a church newsletter, which would probably call itself a "Church newsletter" <sigh>).

The extant rule about "biblical", plus all of MOS:DOCTCAPS, plus the basic MOS:CAPS rule, are together sufficient to overrule any attempt to capitalize miscellaneous words like "scripture" just "because they're religious" or "because they're important in my religion" or "because it seems disrespectful to me to not capitalize my religion's terms", yadda yadda yadda. People have to understand the difference between the general subject of doctrine and scripture, and a proper name for a specific doctrine (the Holy Trinity, for example) or a specific scripture (the Gospel of Luke, etc.). If they seem unable or unwilling to absorb it, refer them here and it'll be explained to them in detail.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:51, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Capitalisation of school subject names

Any thoughts- and why. I have been looking at the Secondary education in Italy article. History, geography, Latin, Spanish, mathematics all come up in several contexts. These examples are simplified cases

  • All students do history, geography, Latin. Or should it be latin?
  • He hated Geography and particularly Mr Brown. Where Geography is the proper name of specific class.
  • He had Geography, French, Mathematics and English on his timetable that morning and Physical education in the afternoon. Those are all titles
  • Mr Brown made geography fascinating.

As it stands there is no consistency and MOS doesn't mention school subject names. I can see the occasion where I will be asked by a EFL student for a reason. --ClemRutter (talk) 21:21, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

School subjects would generally be lower case except where they contain proper nouns such as languages. If referring to a specific named course like Geography 205 Spatial Distribution of Populations, that would be capitalized. For a high school class where there's one course in the social sciences department named Geography, it could be capitalized, but there's seldom a need to. Generally – capitalize proper nouns. People in education tend to overcapitalize subject areas, but Wikipedia doesn't.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:40, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Excellent- I hadn't considered making a distinction between subjects and courses. I will copy this to WP:WPSCH/AGClemRutter (talk) 12:27, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

HYPHEN-MINUS versus hyphen

The section that says "Otherwise prefer unstyled, plain-English character names (whether they coincide with code point names or not): the hyphen and the en dash, not the HYPHEN-MINUS and the EN DASH." is problematic. A Unicode problem, inherited from ASCII, is that HYPHEN-MINUS covers various sorts of hyphen and dash-like characters. If you want a hyphen, you should use U+2010, HYPHEN, at least in theory. So if you actually want to refer to the HYPHEN-MINUS, if you need to refer to the character that most keyboards produce, using "the hyphen" is wrong and confusing.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:40, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. The ASCII/UNICODE codepoint or glyph called HYPHEN-MINUS is the universally used and preferred way to make a hyphen. The HYPHEN character is seldom used. And it's just fine to refer to the HYPHEN-MINUS glyph as "the hyphen", since that's its main, or only, typographical use. In typography, the hyphen is used for other dash-like characters only when those other characters are not available, as in ASCII. There's no excuse for using the HYPHEN-MINUS for a minus sign or en dash in UNICODE, though it is used for minus in programming languages. Dicklyon (talk) 02:49, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
Why are we talking about glyphs? They're simply not relevant to the discussion; we're talking about characters and code points. The Unicode Standard, edition 11, section 6.2, page 255 says "Because of its prevalence in legacy encodings, U+002D hyphen-minus is the most common of the dash characters used to represent a hyphen. It has ambiguous semantic value and is rendered with an average width. U+2010 hyphen represents the hyphen as found in words such as “left-to-right.” It is rendered with a narrow width. When typesetting text, U+2010 hyphen is preferred over U+002D hyphen-minus." It is not universally preferred; I'd be interested in seeing any authoritative sources on that. Likewise, HYPHEN-MINUS is used for a minus sign or en dash anywhere input is directly taken from a standard keyboard.
In any case, if you want or need to talk about the HYPHEN-MINUS, you need to talk about the HYPHEN-MINUS. If you want to talk about the hyphen, you need to talk about the hyphen. Conflating the two just confuses things.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:54, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. Frankly, U+2010 is a disused thing created for fancy typesetting. Damned near no one in the world uses it for general online writing. Even if we wanted to: A) We'd need technology changes to make this practical (like adding it to the "Insert" toolbox below the editing window, and upgrading that – we need to do this anyway – to say what each character is when you hover over it). B) We'd also need to convince the editorial community that it's a good idea to effectively require using yet another character they can't easily make on their keyboard, but need very, very frequently, like every other sentence, despite readers not expecting it, and no semantic difference. Given the push-back level (and just-don't-care, i.e. I-will-never-bother, level) we already get about en dashes and em dashes, this is just never going to fly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:51, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Re extending the Edit-window’s Insert-Smörgåsbord . . could we include our (preferred) ‘dumb’ spark and rabbit’s-ear quotes? My (yes, horrible) iPhone insists on guessing (poorly) which flavour of ‘smart’ quote to impose on me. When wickifying I have to engage in horribly intricate editing.
I have to confess tht in plain copy I leave it for article cleanup by other editors! That must be proppa annoying for everyone. But it’s not my idleness / arrogance. I’ve found tht the rather obsessive *syntactic* proofreading required to fix it disrupts *semantic and grammatical* proofreading. I prioritise that, of course!
- SquisherDa (talk) 09:55, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Capitalisation of mass (= Roman rite) used as an adjective

Could I have an extra set of eyes on Talk:History of sundials#Capitalization of "Mass". We are talking about a caption where the phrase mass dial is disputed. --ClemRutter (talk) 10:10, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

I’m seeing two reasons, in the opening sentences of the MoS article, why “Mass” (in reference to the rite of the Roman Church) should be capitalised:
(a) “capitalization is .. needed for proper names”, and
(b) “words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in .. independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.”
Having said that, I can’t claim I’ve done a survey of reliable sources mentioning Mass. I Just Know(TM) what the result would be. It would support (b)!
In relation to (a): “Mass”, in the relevant sense, is a rite, not a doctrine or idea. And it’s not a description of the rite. It’s the name applied to the particular rite. It’s a proper noun.
In reference to the particular edit tht trigered this discussion: as a reader, I was ‘derailed’ by the uncapitalised version. It functioned as an inconvenient and intrusive unfortunate misprint. That is, I lost my grasp of the text and had to begin consciously trying to reconstruct the meaning. The conclusion I reached was tht the editor reverting to lower-case had unconsciously assumed tht in a semi-scientific article, it must be mass (as in tons, kilograms, whatever) tht was being referred to. I mentally corrected the text, and looked forward to seeing how long it took for the change back to the capitalised form to be made. It was a big surprise to see tht an editor fully alert to the thing saw reason for lower case.
- SquisherDa (talk) 23:42, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment. You appear then to stumbled on the correct spelling by accident! Scratch dials aka mass dials were common in the 9th to 12th century, so to follow your points I googled eleventh century "mass dials" and came up with the reference I should have thought of first British Sundial Society Glossary of Sundial terms, that and the other references are consistent in their lower case usage. You can find some written in title case. I think that your interpretation common noun / proper noun differs slightly from WP:MOS- as mine did not too long ago. ClemRutter (talk) 01:47, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Mmmm. What I think we’re going to find is tht the term, standing alone (that is, as a noun) and referring to the rite, is always (“consistently”) capitalised; but tht in the world of sundials - where the term stands adjectivally, describing the type of sundial - a contrary usage is widespread. (I think you’ve overshot a bit in describing the Society’s glossary “and other references” as “consistent”? But on my search - Google, “mass dials” - it seems clear tht it’s widespread.)
It’s interesting tht the original contributor to the article tht brought us here referred - in the relevant caption - to a “mass dial” . . and explained that term as referring to “Mass”! So the one caption illustrates both usages!
So appeal to the MoS will give us different conclusions, depending on which “reliable sources” we consider relevant! That is, we can consider general literature as establishing tht Mass is “Mass”, capitalised, and the sundial wonks have got it wrong; or tht here in an article about sundials it’s how the experts on sundials do it tht counts!
My bias will always favour the more general usage - as Wikipedia is a general encyclopaedia and most visitors to any article will be mere visitors to the relevant specialism. (In this particular case I feel they really won’t welcome a moment’s confusion on seeing Mass referred to as “mass”.)
Either way, though, I’m surprised to find tht the answer on my point (b) does *not* depend on the interpretation of the MoS. It depends on the application of the Reliable Sources principle!
My (a) is a separate argument, of course; and what MoS means by a “proper name” is another thing.
- SquisherDa (talk) 03:15, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
There’s been further discussion, around a big-data approach, back at Talk:History of sundials#Capitalization of "Mass". I’ve suggested there tht continuation should be here.
Incidentally, Clem - thinking of locations and headings - the title you used for this MoS Talk section is a bit uninformative. The title doesn’t indicate tht the discussion is about m/Mass meaning the Roman rite!
Would it make sense to amend it?
- SquisherDa (talk) 09:32, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Getting a bit messy isn't it! If we move the discussion to Sundials- then we will have a more specialised audience- and solve the problem of mass dials, if we leave it here we will pull in the Religion editors, and can help define the limitations of Mass when it is used outside a specific church. A title change could also veer the conversation. The Roman Rite Mass however does not help here as we are talking about artefacts that pre-date it by several centuries. I am content to see the title change if it is helpful- but not convinced it will be.

--ClemRutter (talk) 11:10, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Besides the sun dial, are there any other situations where the noun “Mass” (ie the catholic liturgical service) is used adjectively? I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Blueboar (talk) 12:07, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Only one I can think of off the top of my head is "Mass card", meaning the sympathy card sent to the family of a recently deceased person that indicates the sender has also sponsored a Mass to be said in memeory of the deceased. I'm sure there are others along those lines, where the object is specifically tied to use in the Roman Rite liturgy. (Though I'd also it's that other western churches use the term for their liturgies, too, though that can vary even within a denomination.) oknazevad (talk) 14:18, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Predate it by several centuries? You realize that the Divine Liturgy has been part of Christianity since the Apostolic Age? Perhaps the term "Mass" was not applied to it until sometime after its translation to Latin. But here we are in English Wikipedia using a term ("Mass dial") applied retroactively by scholars, I would assume. So it makes no sense, for the sake of argument, what the term predates. 70.162.235.236 (talk) 18:39, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
By the way, it is quite interesting to me that, in the realm of classical music, "Mass" is written in lowercase sometimes, and usage is quite inconsistent in this topic, e.g. paraphrase mass. 70.162.235.236 (talk) 18:42, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
There is one other usage that comes to mind, that is the mass wafer, that the Roman church likes to call altar bread, the low anglicans call communion wafers but the Anglo-Catholic church reject that and call it mass wafer. As it comes at the point in the mass, that is called communion- the RCs appear happy to refer to mass wafer or communion wafer- consistent with talking about communion wine. No if we take the sentence that "A priest may say mass three times on a Holy Day of Obligation- but the 10 am Mass is the most important" which I believe is a correct WP MOS sentence. The first time mass is used, it is a common noun (general) but the second time it is specific, so is a proper noun and must take a capital. Barring errors (which never happen on WP ! ?) I think you find that that is what is happening on music articles. ClemRutter (talk) 15:53, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Capital letters in infoboxes ("partof" field)

Hello, I have noticed that some users (see this diff, @Akld guy: "This is the title of an article, same as if it was the title of a book") revert sentence case to title case in infoboxes ("partof" field).

Could a more experienced person, please, clarify it? I think Akld guy's "Part of Terrorism in New Zealand" in the infobox (instead of "Part of terrorism in New Zealand") is against MOS:ALLCAPS, because it serves only a stylistic purpose. Thanks in advance.--Russian Rocky (talk) 19:05, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

What does this have to do with ALLCAPS? All caps would be "Part of TERRORISM IN NEW ZEALAND". ―Mandruss ☎ 19:16, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
@Mandruss: It's just a redirect's name. At least read it, it concerns small caps title case as well.--Russian Rocky (talk) 19:28, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
What does this have to do with small caps? Small caps would be "Part of terrorism in new zealand". ―Mandruss ☎ 19:31, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
@Mandruss: I apologize, I meant title case. I'm aware that sentence case is preferred according Wikipedia's rules (WP:NCCAPS, WP:SENTENCECASE, etc), but I've never heard that it's OK to revert sentence case to title case in such cases like ours.
FYI, I came here to get an answer (I'm right/wrong or Akld guy's right/wrong) to prevent mistakes in the future.--Russian Rocky (talk) 19:55, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I think there’s probably been a miscommunication right at the outset - around @Akld guy:’s edit summary, 

Partial revert. This is the title of an article, same as if it was the title of a book

I think the title he means is *not* the infobox (sub)title, “Part of terrorism in New Zealand”. I think @Russian Rocky: is reading Akld guy‘s summary as meaning that whole subtitle. But I think what Akld guy actually has in mind is tht “Part of” references in infoboxes are, of course, references to Wikipedia articles - Terrorism in New Zealand, in this case - and of course our convention is tht Wikipedia articles are normally titled in sentence case: he’s talking about the title of that article, pointing out tht it’s not called “terrorism in New Zealand”.

If I’m right, it could save a lot of grief if we suggest to contributors using such infoboxes tht the partof field should hold a title in Article case (if that’s a phrase we use??). (Or of course hack the relevant software to force upper case for the first letter of the field value? if that’s the kind of thing we do on Wikipedia??)

- SquisherDa (talk) 20:01, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. The partof field does not refer to terrorism but rather to an article about terrorism. Or, alternatively, a subject area represented by an article about terrorism. We would usually lower-case the first word of that wikilink in running prose, but this is not running prose. I can't put my finger on other examples at the moment, but I'm fairly certain the partof field value almost always matches the article title. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:14, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
@Mandruss:, article title starts with a capital letter by default. I doubt it can be an indicator.
@SquisherDa: thanks for your answer. Regarding of "he’s talking about the title of that article, pointing out tht it’s not called “terrorism in New Zealand”, as far as I know, each Wikipedia's article starts with a capital letter by default. That's why people use special templates, if lower case is needed (iPhone, for example, uses {{Lowercase title}}).
I think someone should add a more detailed description for this "partof" field, because it's too confusing at the moment. Logically, we should stick to sentence case (therefore "Part of terrorism in New Zealand").--Russian Rocky (talk) 20:27, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
My point is that, if the field refers to an article or subject area, it makes sense to match the article title exactly. The partof field is saying that the article Christchurch mosque shootings is "part of" the larger subject area, not that the shootings are. It's the difference between "Studies suggest that terrorism in New Zealand has doubled in the past 20 years" and "The Wikipedia article Terrorism in New Zealand was created in 2007." ―Mandruss ☎ 20:39, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
We seem to be agreeing tht what this is basically about is whether the infobox subtitle, saying “[This is] part of . . ” is saying this *article* is part of *Wikipedia’s coverage* of (in this case) Terrorism in New Zealand: or tht what this article is *about* is an aspect of the broader *subject* of terrorism in New Zealand.
My instinct is tht what an infobox ought to be saying is tht the article it appears in is part of Wikipedia’s coverage of something. I’d expect it to be fairly much an equivalent of the section tag, “Main article: . . ” (though perhaps sometimes referring to a Wikipedia category, or project, or something, rather than an article).
Otherwise, what are people going to put in these partof fields? - whatever phrase seems to them appropriate, presumably! Basically, a short description of an article tht may or may not have been written (and if not will it ever be?!)
Thing is, though - (and looking specifically at the current example) whatever the Christchurch mosque shootings *article* is or isn’t part of, it’s plainly not “part of” the Terrorism in New Zealand article!
It seems to me we’re in a bit of a tangle with this. This “Part of” thing in infoboxes just seems obscure. Neither interpretation of what it really means seems sustainable. And whether or not the word Terrorism in this particular case should be capitalised seems to depend entirely on which interpretation we go for. Awkward!
- SquisherDa (talk) 01:07, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Lest anyone think I have ignored this debate after being pinged, I haven't. It's Sunday afternoon here and I'm writing this at 5.30 pm after being out since 8.45 am on a day's bike ride without opportunity to log in. I doubt I have anything to add, except I'm following with interest. Akld guy (talk) 04:32, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
:-)
- SquisherDa (talk) 07:18, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Should all instances of 'tbd' in this article be changed to 'TBD'?

In the article List of aircraft carriers in service, the abbreviation 'tbd' is always used with all lowercase letters, instead of 'TBD' in all caps. They can be seen in the Carriers ordered and Other planned carriers sections. I propose changing them all to 'TBD' as this form is much more commonly used and is widely considered the correct format. JACKINTHEBOX • TALK 12:55, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Can't see why caps shouldn't be used for an acronym. Is there resistance to it? If not, I'd go ahead and make the change. Primergrey (talk) 16:14, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Acronyms are normally capitalised so "tbd" is inconsistent. --AussieLegend (✉) 16:35, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks all. I tried to make the change on that article in June last year, but was reverted twice, so am less willing to make the same change readily. JACKINTHEBOX • TALK 00:43, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Punta del Este

Seeking advice/opinion, please. The page Punta del Este uses lower case 'del', which makes sense to me (translated, it is simply 'of the'). The page Punta Del Este Sevens, a sporting event in that city, seems to use upper case 'D'. Should this 'D' be lower case? Thanks. -- Ham105 (talk) 08:13, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Question on this Talk page usage

Could the top section 'Capitalization discussions ongoing [keep at top of talk page]' be used to better explain the talk page's purpose/usage? This talk page features the blurb "The use of discretionary sanctions has been authorized by the Arbitration Committee for pages related to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style and article titles policy, including this page. Please consult the awareness criteria and edit carefully." which makes it really unclear whether it is even OK for someone to say something on the talk page (Hoping I won't get banned or something for this comment...) without receiving prior approval (it doesn't help that "sanction" means both permission and punishment in English, and usage can vary colloquially; and I read the arbitration committee discretionary sanctions aware aware section text about a half dozen times and I'm still not 100% sure I grok how it applies to this talk page). Also, I noticed that this section's title includes "keep at top of talk page" but the description below says "Please keep this section at the bottom of the page." I had wanted to ask a question about clarifying a caps policy (I put my question in my talk page, btw, for the curious), but wasn't sure if that was allowed. os (talk) 06:36, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

If you're not aware, you're not at risk. And DS are stupid, generally speaking; maybe they'll sanction me for saying so. Dicklyon (talk) 21:45, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Capitalization of "army" and "navy"

The section MOS:MILTERMS seems clear to me, but some editors have recently recapitalized "army" and "navy" in United States Army Parachute Team and Don Adams even though I referred them to MOS:MILTERMS (please see the talk pages). Maybe the MoS needs more or better examples. The phrase "the words for types of military unit" seems to throw some people for a loop, especially the word types. On the talk page for Don Adams, one made the argument that "a Navy hospital" means one run by the US Navy, while "a navy hospital" means one run by New Zealand, perhaps. This is ludicrous; our readers are not likely to see differences in meaning when one word is capitalized. The MoS should make it crystal clear that common nouns or their equivalent adjectives are not capitalized even when they refer to a specific unit or organization that has a known proper name. Smith joined the army. He led his regiment up the hill. He left his job at the bank. He taught at the university. He was an army sergeant. All this even though we are discussing the U.S. Army, the 7th Cavalry Regiment, San Juan Hill, the Bank of Scotland, the University of Notre Dame. Any thoughts before I change the MoS? Chris the speller yack 20:41, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

General usage in publishing appears to capitalize "Army" or "Navy" when referring to specific organizations, such as the U.S. or British armies (but lower case in the general use, as I just unintentionally did).
Here are a list of reputable sources that conform to this standard:
  • "Flush with surplus Army vehicles, the War Department..." (Washington Post) [1]
  • "Prior to the sentencing, Lt. Brian John, a Navy prosecutor..." (Fox News) [2]
  • "The Air Force is investigating an incident in which bombs were dropped over Florida on Monday afternoon." (CNN) [3]
  • "Mr. Trump named Mark T. Esper the secretary of the Army..." (New York Times) [4]
I would certainly be open to clarifying our guidance, but believe it should conform to this, since it is commonly used by major media outlets. Plus, almost all of our military articles conform to this, indicating a widespread and long lasting existing consensus on the topic. Garuda28 (talk) 22:53, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
If we're going to start sourcing our house style I'd hope we would use major style guides and not ape the house style of a news agency. Primergrey (talk) 11:30, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Pinging users who’s edits prompted this discussion for input. @General Ization: @McChizzle:Garuda28 (talk) 23:04, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
@Garuda28: Thanks for the ping. Your information is consistent with the information I shared with Chris the speller at Talk:Don Adams#Capitalization of "navy" (in response to which I was accused of having an "impenetrable lack of understanding of what a proper name is"). General Ization Talk 23:26, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
Capitalized when referring to a specific country's service (proper), uncapitalized in the general sense (common). That's been very consistent in my experience. That's also irrelevant for purposes of our MoS, in my opinion. If major style guides can be shown to support something different, that's what our MoS should show, although I doubt that they can be. That "burden of evidence" is rightly on those who advocate that "something different", and I'll wait. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:32, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
@Mandruss: This is what I have seen as well. If the debate ends up in the favor of the status quo, would you be in favor of codifying this guidance, to avoid any repeats? Garuda28 (talk) 23:36, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
How are you defining "status quo"? ―Mandruss ☎ 23:40, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
Capitalized when referring to a specific country's service (proper), uncapitalized in the general sense (common). That seems to be not only how it is used the vast preponderance of the time on wikipedia, but also in most secondary sources I can find (to include non-military sources). Garuda28 (talk) 23:47, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
Well sure, if there is significant ongoing disagreement and a clear consensus can be shown for one way or other, it makes sense to clarify the guideline to avoid further time spent on the disagreement. As for what constitutes "a clear consensus", I'm inclined to think an RfC would be worthwhile. And any consensus should be for or against a very precise change to the guideline, which should include specific usage examples such as "Murphy enlisted in the Army in 1942". For maximum benefit, thorough consideration should be given to the proposed guidance; regrettably, I don't have much time to devote to that right now. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:07, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Capitalized when referring to a specific country's service (proper), uncapitalized in the general sense (common) is what I believe it should be. Example a being "Bloggs is in the U.S. Army. The Army required him to do sit-ups." Example b being "an army is a grouping of soldiers". Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:52, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Merriam-Webster's entry for "army" (in the sense of "the complete military organization of a nation") says "often capitalized" (not "usually capitalized"), but all the examples are in lower case. That should count for something as we discuss this. Remember the overall guidance on capitalization at the beginning of this project page: "capitalization is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, and for the first letter of a sentence". Chris the speller yack 03:57, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Even if we cap when referring to a specific army, it's tricky where to draw the line; in the example given above "surplus Army vehicles" seems very wrong; the point is not that the vehicles are associated with a specific army, but the vehicles are army vehicles, or army surplus. Caps are uncommon in sources in such contexts, and it's too easy to claim that the army is a specific army, which is not really a good reason to cap here. Dicklyon (talk) 04:25, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
I disagree that that seems very wrong, and I disagree that caps are uncommon in such contexts. Those surplus vehicles were from the U.S. Army and no other, and that's not an "easy claim" but an actual, indisputable fact. There may be contexts that are fuzzy, but you haven't cited one. I suggest there is a point where further added complication/nuance stops benefiting readers and becomes purely pedantic, and so I suggest that we not overthink this. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:05, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
I didn't mean to dispute the hypothesis that (in that example) those vehicles all came from the U.S. Army. I'm saying that that makes it easy to claim that that caps should be used there, whereas the alternative would be to just treat those as surplus army vehicles if there's no particular reason to refer to the U.S. Army at that point. They're already referring to the War Department, so unless they had a particular reason to want to emphasize that none of the vehicles came from some source other than the U.S. Army, if seems wrong, or at least unnecessary and redundant, to cap there. Many sources would not do so. So if WP had a choice like that, I'd prefer to fall back on avoiding unnecessary capitalization. It would be unnecessary if we were not trying to particularly limit the context to U.S. Army, and if we were it would be better to be explicit there. Contrast with "a Navy prosecutor" and "the Air Force is investigating" and "secretary of the Navy", where the only sensible interpretation is that these are short for the particular oganizations. Dicklyon (talk) 21:42, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Exactly what Dicklyon said. And CMOS, Oxford, and our own MOS say to "minimize unnecessary capitals". In each instance a good case needs to be put as to why they add something necessary. Tony (talk) 00:06, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Dick says we should say "surplus army vehicles" or "surplus Army vehicles" depending on whether it's otherwise clear we're talking about U.S. Army vehicles. By extension, we would say "the moon" or "the Moon" depending on whether it's otherwise clear we're talking about the Earth's satellite. And yet we don't apply that rule there; it's always "the Moon" for Earth's satellite. So you seek to apply different reasoning for moons and armies, and that's just wrong. It's also unnecessarily complicated, well beyond any benefit to readers.
Framed differently, if you prefer: Our "minimize unnecessary capitals" guidance leaves it to us to define "necessary", and I consider capitalization "necessary" for proper nouns, proper names, and any derivatives thereof, regardless of context. You can define "necessary" differently if you wish, but your definition carries no more weight than mine. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:29, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Please don't say what you think I say and twist it "by extension" to even worse. Dicklyon (talk) 01:16, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Ok. You have my !vote, and I'd appreciate a ping if there's an RfC. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:25, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Dicklyon, please review the conversation I had with the OP, in which the OP refused to accept that "Navy hospital" was "short for" a hospital operated by the US Navy (i.e., "Navy" in this case is an alternate form of the service's proper name), hence Navy should be capitalized. How is that different than "a Navy prosecutor"? (Or are you agreeing that it is not different?) General Ization Talk 01:18, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I wasn't expressing an opinion on that, since I hadn't seen it, but I agree with your assessment there that Since the source uses the capitalized form, and it was a hospital operated by the US Navy, "Navy", not "navy" is the correct form. This allows that "navy hospital" could have been right if the source hadn't implied necessarily a US Navy facility (which they did by capping it). Similarly, I agree that "Navy prosecutor" is fine, when that's what it means. But the "army vehicles" was what I talking about as being more likely than "Army vehicles", even if the vehicles are presumed to have come from the US Army (which Mandruss says is indusputable, but I don't see in the source any reason to care). Dicklyon (talk) 02:59, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I think the source I provided for “Army vehicles” may not have been the most illustrative (and perhaps distracts from the overall point), but I believe, based on my current understanding, I am in agreement with you on this. Garuda28 (talk) 03:11, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I hope so. Examples: "army vehicles" in British Army context; "army vehicles" in India Army context. In both cases, "army" is about the type of vehicle, not a proper name for the country's army that they're talking about. Would Mandruss say that since they're indisputably about vehicles of a specific army, they should be capped? Not sure, let's ask him. Dicklyon (talk) 03:48, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I believe the reason they capitalized it was because they were former U.S. Army vehicles, rather than general army vehicles, but I also think it’s a bit of a moot point since we will almost never see this usage on Wikipedia. I’m more concerned about the “Navy hospital” or “the Air Force investigates” usages, which is (based on my understanding) what we seem to all be agreeing upon. @Mandruss: does this match your understanding as well? Garuda28 (talk) 03:55, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I believe Wikipedia should use reliable sources for facts, not general style questions. I can cherry-pick reliable sources to support my viewpoint on style as easily as anybody, and my cherries would be equally meaningless. It will be impossible to establish with any confidence that a predominance of sources go one way or the other. I therefore suggest we cease referring to sources other than major style guides.
Again, I believe there comes a point of diminishing returns, where further "refinement", read complication, benefits neither editors nor readers. And I believe that drawing a distinction between "Navy hospital" and Indian "army vehicles" crosses that line. So, yes, I would keep it simple(r), refer to British and Indian "Army vehicles", and Stop Thinking. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:39, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I'm certainly not suggesting we try to let sources vote on our style. I'm trying to say the examples given were not right on the money in terms of where we would draw the line, and that the counter-examples I showed are more consistent with our style of avoiding unnecessary caps. So we'll have to just disagree on the army vehicles thing. And I'd also support what PrimeGrey is saying below as a better and easier to follow approach, though I doubt we could pass that. Dicklyon (talk) 06:10, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Our house style is to write "the river" when writing about the Ohio River, "the desert" when writing about the Gobi Desert, "the scrolls" when writing about the Dead Sea Scrolls, "the man" when writing about the Million Dollar Man, "the show" when writing about the Late Late Show, "the tavern" when writing about Moe's Tavern, "the movie" when writing about Scary Movie, "the library" when writing about the Ottawa Public Library, etc. Capping these is unnecessary. Interpreting ambiguous guidance about branches of a particular military as representing an exception to this is puzzling. If it's necessary to specify that a navy prosecutor is part of the U.S. Navy, then write U.S. Navy prosecutor. Primergrey (talk) 05:28, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Yet, the Queen gets special treatment. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 06:02, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
As does the Moon. Yes, there are exceptions. Already clearly indicated in the manual. Primergrey (talk) 06:40, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Also, even the Queen of England gets written about as "the queen", unless referring to a particular Queen of England. Primergrey (talk) 06:45, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Notice of an RfC about including the word "The" in song/album article titles

Hello there! I started a discussion on the page Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music on 7 July, and it hasn't received any responses. This RfC concerns the use of the word "The" in band names in parentheses in the titles of articles about songs and albums. Further elaboration can be found on that discussion page. I would appreciate thoughts from anyone who may be interested in the discussion. Thank you. –Matthew - (talk) 20:52, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Shouldn't "it" be "them" in the following sentence?

Shouldn't "it" be "them" in the following sentence:"Reduce Latin quotations and terms from all capitals, and put it in italics as non-English"? I mean, since the term "quotations" is plural, I think it's better to say "(...) and put them in italics..." --Fandelasketchup (talk) 23:32, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT. Dicklyon (talk) 00:32, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
Indeed. Be bold. It amazes me that our Manual of Style, which we watch so carefully, still has klangers like that in it. Also, @Fandelasketchup, note that you may be criticized for being too bold or not bold enough. Thank you for pointing out the error. SchreiberBike | ⌨  02:08, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Proper names section seems out of place

Looking through the history, it appears that this section was merged here following an RfC. (Special:Diff/866758021) But it appears wholly out of place. It discusses a range of issues which don't have anything to do with capitalisation. Isn't there a better way to deal with this? --Paul_012 (talk) 17:28, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Campaign vs. campaign in military history articles

Hi. There's a discussion watchers of this talk page may be interested in over at WT:MILHIST#Campaign vs campaign. It primarily is a matter of capitalising article titles per WP:NCCAPS. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:41, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Since the discussion an MilHist is considered to be in the wrong place, and has received little response due to WP:CONLEVEL, I'm bringing it here. In-depth details follow for consideration. — Marcus(talk) 06:22, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  • The MOS is lacking coverage in the matter of military campaigns and needs expanding, MOS:MILTERMS and WP:MILMOS simply state "The general rule is that wherever a military term is an accepted proper noun, it should be capitalized" which does not solve the issue, as it remains subjective amongst editors and historians, and so WP:NCCAPS inherits the same problem regarding ambiguity in this area. For example, it is considered acceptable to use "Battle of Waterloo" (with Battle being capitalised as a proper noun) here on Wikipedia and yet something like "Waterloo Campaign" is being brought into question, with the capitalisation of "campaign" being challenged on a large scale basis, but with no qualitative evidence being given, since the only offerings are from Google N-grams, and that poses an array of problems, most obvious being that N-grams cannot be verified, per WP:V.
    • Detailed concerns: we do not know how Google selects titles to scan; because Google Books allows full, limited or zero access to books, we do not know if N-grams is also affected and if copyright issues affect the results; Google only scans a limited number of titles with search by year only going to 2008 – excluding the last 11 years of publication, and we do not know how this biases the data; OCR has limitations and makes mistakes identify characters and case – new digital-era books will be accurate, OCR scanned books will have errors – yet to filter from, say 1990 only, would be biased; context is not considered and wildcards are subjective – we don't know if results came from the index, title, headings, bibliography, footnotes, or the main body; results can be manipulated and/or misinterprested; and so on, making N-grams very hard to rely upon depending on the purpose and criteria. Without seeing the data in context we are blind. Comparing unique values in N-grams is said to work best, so "foo" and "bar" if you accept that it'll involve all scanned books, but you couldn't do the same with "Lord" and "God", for example, because Lord is also a human title of nobility as well as diety, and as religious texts can't be filterered, the result would be unreliable for. Thus my point about not being able to verify the results becomes more obvious. Even for campaigns, we don't know what the sources Google scanned are saying, to be confident of the results.
  • Let us take two examples: "Battle of Waterloo" and "Waterloo Campaign" or "Battle of Gettysburg" and "Gettysburg Campaign". Moving Waterloo Campaign to lowercase is in dispute. Gettysburg Campaign was recently moved under the claim "Case norm; overwhelmingly lowercase in sources. ", and yet even N-grams fields a greater number of results for capitalised Campaign if I search without context and mixed results for "campaign" if the search is expanded with wildcards. A simple RM was made, no proof given, no notifications to MilHist, the moving admin did not verify the claim. The argument for MOS case normalising is ambiguous, not overwhelmingly clear. This case highlights the need to expand the MOS and determine whether Wikipedia considers campaign names to be proper nouns, as it has with battles. We shouldn't have to rely on trivial data such as these charts show. Assessing 0.00000001% discrepancies in data isn't a normal way to create content, and certainly not Featured Articles. We need something more in line with MOS:CONSISTENCY, since military campaigns are effectively the same thing, whether it be 1066 or 1944. Consistent naming across related articles is a good practice for an encyclopedia to adopt.
  • Since "Battle of Waterloo" and "Waterloo Campaign" are both singular events, technically the same event, with the Campaign encompassing the battles which occurred within it, it makes sense to treat the Campaign as a proper noun. The same applies for many campaigns and many battles – the MOS should be used to maintain a consistent format across related subjects, not to adhere to modern cultural standards and left/right wing schools of thought (explained here) but to describe "consistent and precise language, layout, and formatting, making Wikipedia easier and more intuitive for users" per the lead of the MOS:MAIN page. This will help minimise further debate, war editing and the need to use dubious sources, such as N-grams, since most editors, who create and maintain these high quality historial articles, are unlikely to use N-grams to check if they're writing articles in line with Google calculations, when their own sources and material, books and documents, serve to guide them.
  • The digitisation of books and turning it into raw data then subjectively unloading it onto Wikipedia with synthesised results is not encouraging, disparages creators and makes their attempts to write high quality material feel less impressive, especially when someone comes along and says "You can't write articles like that, because N-grams says so." Therefore, Wikipedia needs to clarify the format, allowing more preision for creators and MilHist members, without having to worry about whatever N-grams says; its results should not impress or dictate how creators can contribute.

There's a lot to consider, I realise, and apologise for the wall of text, but simply defering to MOS:CAPS and saying "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization" isn't going to solve the issue, per the points I raised; what is unnecessary is subjective if an established format cannot be demonstrated. The question to anyone opposing capitalised Campaign being: if the proper noun "Battle of" is considered a singular event, why can't the higher "Campaign" element be a singular event and also treated with a proper noun? I see no logic in the current debate because of this. For those that do accept N-grams as a guide of usage, for what it's worth, it shows lower-case "battle of" as more common than "Battle of", in many of the cases N-grams highlights, including Waterloo, seen here with context, and yet we've settled on upper-case across Wikipedia and that provides a comfortable standard. It only makes sense to do the same with Campaign articles.

Conclusion: although MOS:MILTERMS states "The general rule is that wherever a military term is an accepted proper noun, it should be capitalized", there is no reliable means to determine whether "Campaign" or even "Battle of" are accepted proper nouns, it's a matter of "this source vs that source", there is no consenus between historians and even different generations use different styles, making it a matter of what was common or trending at the time. This makes it more essential to make a determination and addition to MOS, as we have with so many other groups of nouns. Thanks — Marcus(talk) 06:22, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Discussion (Campaign vs. campaign)

Personally, I think the lack of standardisation in sources should be reflected on wikipedia, and instead of seeking pointless standardisation (seriously, what is the benefit?), we should take a leaf out of WP:ENGVAR - keep what the first editor used unless there is a strong reason not to, and stay consistent within the article. (Hohum @) 19:11, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
WP serves readers best when things convey meaning well. Capital letters have generally been reserved on WP to convey that "this is a proper name" (or "proper noun" or related). Throwing that out and keeping all the over-capitalization that articles tend to start with would be a big disservice to readers, don't you think? Dicklyon (talk) 20:30, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
To start thinking that, you'd have to prove that the current house style of capitalising "Battle of..." is a disservice to readers also. Since I know of no such complaints, I hardly expect there will be a sudden outcry by maintaining capitalised Campaign in the same consistent manner. Wars, Campaigns and Battles go hand-in-hand, all different levels of a conflict. We currently capitalise two of those: War and Battle without fuss. Campaign conveys equal meaning: a military event. Reserving capital letters is not handled in a proficient manner anyway, when we find a grey area in the MOS it is discussed and a consensus reached. I find there are more grievances with regards using lower-case military/nobility ranks mid-sentence than with the use of Battle, and expect the same of Campaign. No-one was complaining about these articles using capitalised Campaign before you started moving them, you took that task upon yourself without any provocation and decided to blanket the entire MilHist campaign range with the same attitude. If you had stuck to one or two articles it might be fine, but dozens, without seeing if there was a reason for why Campaign was the more common naming convention in the first place adds to the controversy, in that you never put forward an evidence-backed argument to MilHist that Campaign is not a proper noun. It's rude to go on the pretense that you're the only editor competent in English and that the dozens of editors who created those articles are all wrong, given that you have never proven to us that "Campaign" is not a proper name. That would have been the correct process. — Marcus(talk) 01:15, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
I didn't suggest throwing out what reliable sources do. Quite the opposite. (Hohum @) 00:25, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Seems to me that when some quality sources capitalize something while other quality sources do not, the capitalization of that thing can be deemed "unnecessary". Primergrey (talk) 22:29, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Seems to ME that when some quality sources capitalize and other quality sources don’t... the issue of capitalization does not MATTER. There is no need to change it from one to the other... either way. Blueboar (talk) 22:51, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
Blueboar, you do not need to use caps to emphasize you are talking about a personal preference, try using italics this way instead: me --Fandelasketchup (talk) 12:40, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
It clearly does matter, shouty. Our MOS gives clear guidance to "avoid unnecessary capitalization". Surely if capping this or that is "necessary" then a conspicuous majority of quality sources will do it, won't they? Primergrey (talk) 03:58, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
There are plenty of examples of what some sources do while others don't, such as capitalising "the" before band names like "The Beatles" mid-sentence. That very singular matter was discussed at an RfM in great detail and a standard was determined and is enforced almost fanatically. This case is no different in principle, sources differ and results are mixed, but since one editor sees fit to move the entire catalogue of campaigns on-wiki without consensus it has raised concerns and due to the lack of notifications to MilHist regarding RMs and moves they will be left with a back-log of templates, links, etc not consistent with the parent article. Now you can thank Dicklyon for his lack of courtesy in notifying and involving the relevant project in this matter, almost as if MilHist's purpose was obsolete, despite their high standards all you like on that. But determining a style as unneccessary just because some sources don't do it is trite reasoning and fails to take into account factors such as the age of the source, standardisation, ENGVARs, translated materials, nonenclature, etc, as well as the historian's personal preference. Over-simplifying the matter doesn't warrant ignorance of needing to have good MOS standards, especially for the good of the project which possibly pumps out more Featured Articles than most. — Marcus(talk) 01:15, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Dicklyon is using an established and accepted method. Nothing needs a consensus before it is done, and to revert something with the sole rationale of "no consensus" is trite reasoning indeed. Wikiprojects are for editors to discuss improvements to specific articles. They are not intended to create obstacles in the path of normal editing. As for "age of the source, standardisation, ENGVARs, and translated materials", are you suggesting that contemporary sources should dictate style in historic articles? Imagine the Shakespeare article!! "Standardisation", by definition, would mean that the vast majority of sources were all doing something in a particular way and so would help very much. ENGVAR has no bearing on capitalization. And by mentioning translated materials, are you suggesting that, for example, in an article about a book translated from German we should cap every noun? Primergrey (talk) 03:58, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Not trying to put words into my mouth are you? None of your questions accurately relate to what I posted or you inferred your own meanings and created Strawman arguments to validate yourself (WTF has Shakespeare got to do with military campaigns?). I made no reference to only using contemporary sources and in fact endorse using sources from as far back as possible to cover a broader range of material; not sure how your mind misinterpreted on such a wild tangent. Wikiprojects don't just disuss articles, they create, maintain and improve those under their remit, via reviewing, templates, coordinated efforts; not sure why you undervalue or downplay their role, again over-simplifying the truth. Regardless, none of this relates to the main issue. On a final note, nobody has reverted Dicklyon on a "no consensus" basis – there's nothing to be gained from making stuff up like that unless you're aiming to discrediting the conversation with Ad hominem arguments. Since your attitude and desire to take liberties with truth leaves something to be desired, I'm done talking to you. Ciao. — Marcus(talk) 04:52, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
I don't think this section was supposed to be about me. And there was no "lack of notifications to MilHist regarding RMs"; all RMs on project-related pages are automatically notified to the project; that's one of the project's functions. And I was in constant discussion with the project. But that's not what this is supposed to be about, is it? Why did you go there, Marcus? I thought the question was how should MilHist best interpret and implement MOS provisions about capitalization, and/or how should MilHist have their own somewhat divergent guidelines about capitalization. I suggest not doing the latter. Dicklyon (talk) 06:23, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
@Dicklyon: Responding at your talk page to prevent this debate being derailed again. FYI, MilHist does not use divergent guidelines, it has WP:MILMOS which is more thorough than MOS:MILTERMS and serves to clarify a number of specific examples and provide recommended formats for content relating to military history. That's all that Campaign names requires, some form of clarification rather than whitewashing the lot, as you have attempted. — Marcus(talk) 08:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Not responding to anyone in particular, but I couldn't care less what ngrams say about it. We should follow what the reliable sources used in the article, those that are specifically about that particular campaign, do regarding capitalisation. The decision on each individual article title should depend on the way it is presented in the sources used in the article. There is absolutely no imperative to change all of them to either capitals or lower case, and it shouldn't be done either way unless the sources have been consulted. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:22, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree on consulting sources on a case-by-case basis; but limiting to cited sources is not necessary, and the n-gram stats are one useful tool sometimes. We're looking to see whether the term is consistently treated as a proper name in sources, and not just in specialized sources, which are the ones more likely to be cited. There's an open RM discussion on Talk:Waterloo Campaign where lowercase campaign dominates (yes, even in the cited sources), yet Marcus resists using lowercase, essentially only arguing that it doesn't need fixing, not that sources treat it as a proper name. It's hard to understand why. Dicklyon (talk) 15:49, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Is there a substantive proposal/proposition here? Does this, from the post (the OP directing the discussion to here, rather than MilHist), encapsulate the central premise: Since "Battle of Waterloo" and "Waterloo Campaign" are both singular events, technically the same event, with the Campaign encompassing the battles which occurred within it, it makes sense to treat the Campaign as a proper noun. The same applies for many campaigns and many battles – the MOS should be used to maintain a consistent format across related subjects ...? At the MilHist discussion, there was a substantive proposal put forward.[5][6] MarcusBritish, could you please state a proposal/proposition or like that would define the outcome you would desire or the change to this guideline you would suggest. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:00, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

In the absence of a response, the central proposition appears to be, that campaigns (and perhaps other military "events") be considered an exception to the general guidance related to capitalisation. As a secondary consideration, there is some arguement made in respect to the use of n-grams WRT capitalisation discussions. To the central proposition, MB has offered one source in support. It is an editorial piece and the author, James Joyner, is a Security Studies professor at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College and a former soldier. They are neither an historian nor an authority on grammar or onomastics (the study of proper nouns). Their occupation is tied to styles (military and government) known to over-capitalise and they offer no authorities to support their position.
  • Per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS, which defers to MOS:CAPS, where Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. Also, Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. By the latter, the burden is to show that capitalisation is necessary. The former quote states the criteria require, which is empirical evidence rather than any gramatical (onomastic) or orthographic "rule".
  • N-gram evidence can show that (or is very indicative of) capitalisation being unnecessary (or necessary), however; a case for retaining caps can be made by consulting a sample of sources. The virtue of n-gram evidence is that the corpus (sample set) is not subject to cherry-picking and where sources are relied upon, discussions can degenerate into a source war - which side has accumulated the most sources and which sources are the most authoritative. Notwithstanding that article title are assessed on a case-by-case basis, I am not seeing any evidence of usage that would support generally retaining capitalisation (ie a substantial majority in most of these cases). I have commented on several of the RMs.
  • On the arguement of WP:V to n-grams, WP:SOURCEACCESS does not require that the sources are accessible (viewable) through Google Books. Indeed, it is extremely rare for academic articles to include the raw data. As a tool, n-grams are verified by the two academic papers cited here. Also, per proper noun, proper nouns are not descriptive (X campaign is) and a unique or specific referent does not necessarily mean that a word/phrase is a proper noun/name. While MOS:CAPS relies on empirical evidence rather than a theoretical determination (ie rules of grammar), the rule-based critera cited above are not definitive and tend to not support the arguements being made for capitalisation.
  • On the primary proposition, I am not seeing a strong arguement to override the strong community consensus for these particular cases. On the secondary issue, I conclude the arguement of WP:V to be a case based on misrepresentation of that guideline. N-gram evidence is a useful tool in establishing if capitalisation is/maybe warranted. It has never been posed as being the only means. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 08:55, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

To the extent this is still an active discussion, I've said my piece elsewhere. When Wikipedia is using a WP:DESCRIPTIVE title that is just some English words, then lowercase "c" campaign is fine. When Wikipedia is talking about an event with a specific name, then it should follow what that name is in the sources. Unfortunately, I don't think n-grams is a useful way to investigate the sources; per Peacemaker above, the better way is to find the best sources about the event first, then mimic whatever they do. Sometimes this will be capital C, sometimes it won't. As far as a substantive proposal - well, a lot of Dicklyon's moves were done on the basis of n-grams alone and not according to my preferred framework, but so it goes. I stand by the above as a more useful test for any future RMs, or potential reversions to moves that went through without discussion. SnowFire (talk) 04:38, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

SnowFire, it would be helpful if you could give one or more examples of campaigns that appear capitalized in better sources – especially if it's one that I lowercased. It's hard to get anywhere arguing abstractions. Dicklyon (talk) 05:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Revisiting this discussion (Campaign vs. campaign)

Now that MarcusBritish is indef blocked, it might be easier to discuss this issue here. There are still a few campaigns capped that probably shouldn't be, such as Peninsula Campaign, Reims Campaign, Jiangqiao Campaign, and a bunch of articles Xxx Campaign Union order of battle and Xxx Campaign Confederate order of battle. The latter are no-brainers unless the base campaign article lowercasings are challenged. @Amakuru: The Peninsula Campaign (or Peninsular Campaign) may interest some people because if you squint just right you might claim that caps have recently become more common in sources that lowercase. I certainly wouldn't think anyone would claim its a significant supermajority, or consistently, or whatever sensible criterion you'd like to use. I haven't yet studied the next two I mentioned.

The previous discussion at the MilHist project is archived to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 152#Campaign vs campaign. The list of previous RM discussions from there is now extended with another moved to lowercase, Waterloo campaign, all closing with consensus to lowercase campaign:

Does anyone want to see Peninsula Campaign go to RM discussion, or is it the consensus that controversy has been sufficiently removed by all these discussions? Any suggestions for how to determine potential for controversy on the others? There are likely more I haven't found yet in this search. Dicklyon (talk) 04:17, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

There are also a few military campaigns that would just be wrong without caps (if we believe sources): Snow Campaign, Admirable Campaign. Dicklyon (talk) 04:41, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Here's a weird set of cases: First Encirclement Campaign; n-grams. Dicklyon (talk) 04:44, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

So Dick, is there a simplified principle that enables us to sort out why some are exceptions? Tony (talk) 04:55, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
Basically that an overwhelming supermajority of uses in books are capped. In the case of Admirable Campaign I don't know a way to see that in n-grams, though there's a clue there, since lots of campaigns can be described as admirable, but if you do a book search like this, you find no lowercase version. Snow Campaign seems easier; near 90% makes it hard to argue it's not consistently capped in sources; and some of those lowercase uses may not be the campaign in question, like the first one I found. The "First Encirclement Campaign is sometime described as first "encirclement campaign" with lowercase and quotes thus, and sometimes just lowercase, but probably near 2/3 caps. Not "consistently capped in sources"; maybe worth discussing. I'd love to have a better criterion for such cases. It's also weird in that it's not just one thing; or at so the article structure suggests (not sure what sources suggest). And then there are things like Hutt Valley Campaign that are too rare in sources to get a read on; most sources seems to not call it that; I find only one book with it capped and only one with it lowercase; not much to go on. Dicklyon (talk) 05:19, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I went ahead and lowercased Wanganui campaign, because the n-gram stats imply it's in at least 40 books that way, and fewer than 40 books capped. I could be 39–40, or 0–100; no way to tell. But then a book search shows caps are indeed much rarer, so it's easy per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 05:28, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

OK, I like the thouroughness of your research. Tony (talk) 06:23, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi, on the Peninsula Campaign, there is this n-gram that ignores case. I wanted to see if the case sensitive search wasn't picking up on other "X Peninular campaign"s. It isn't all that useful except that it isn't showing up any that are clearly in the "other campaign" category. There is also this search. The hits in the latter are pretty much for the civil war campaign and appear to follow something like the result of the case sensitive n-gram search. I previewed a couple of the hits and there appear to be the usual title case uses to inflate caps usage. It appears to be a case for decapping - not consistently capped per the MOS. However, given the article is probably high profile, it might be worth taking to RM.
    Cinderella, note that your first n-gram is wrong. The n-gram search ignores the case-insensitive switch when you use it with an asterisk. So you're only looking at capped uses there. Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
    I realise that but perhaps others don't. I wasn't using it to look for capitalisation but whether other peninsulas might pop up in the front position. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:47, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
    I have notified the MilHist project that this discussion is still ongoing, and will take it to RM if any one of them asks to. Otherwise, I don't see much potential for controversy. None of the other Civil War ones that I downcased attracted any opposition (except this silliness). Dicklyon (talk) 15:05, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
  • On the encirclement campaigns, they are either unsourced or sourced to Chinese language articles. The choice of title was therefore probably not guided by sources. I looked through previews from google books. Some sources may not be reliable for inclusion in the sample. Previewing is showing relatively few entries in each book and uses where title case would be expected (ie TOC entries). The n-gram is all over the place, with different periods either supporting or not supporting caps, while the most recent sample block (after 2005) is tending to support caps but it is a very small sample. It is a bit all over the place and marginal as to supporting caps overall in more recent times but I am leaning toward decapping on the basis of the inconsistencies over time WRT the need for consistent capping. It might come down to a count. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:38, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Meridian Campaign is another one that shows some minor recent trend toward caps, but still nothing convincing. Dicklyon (talk) 03:57, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I went ahead and moved Meridian Campaign and asked at WP:RMTR for Peninsula Campaign; of course, I will be happy to discuss if someone objects. Dicklyon (talk) 16:33, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I felt the encirclement campaigns could benefit from discussion, so I opened Talk:First_Encirclement_Campaign#Requested_move_20_August_2019. Dicklyon (talk) 00:52, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

That closed with all moved to lowercase; not much participation. Dicklyon (talk) 14:56, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Campaign—in these usages—should always be lower case. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 15:19, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
That about summarizes the consensus. Better late than never. Dicklyon (talk) 13:44, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Celestial bodies again

Previous discussion here (list of more at bottom of that section).

OK, it's been discussed to death, but there has been no satisfying conclusion. The capitalization of Universe on that page, for instance, runs against the majority of RS. Read a pre-Internet NASA book and you see phrases such as "the sun", "the earth", "the moon", and "the solar system", all lowercase. That is because the 'the' qualifier indicates that they are not invoking a proper noun.

However, we make our own rules here, so we have mostly copied (and in turn influenced) the Internet-age publications of space agencies, which have gradually decided to throw out millennia-old conventions for (temporary) collective convenience. What can we do about this? Well I had an idea watching One Strange Rock. It envisioned a future where our descendants travel to other solar systems and refer to our own as "the Sol system" in reference to the Latin name of our sun, which is not named 'Sun'. But well, how embarassing... in the early age of the internet, the grammar politicians determined to capitalize anything there is only one immediately relevant quantity of.

Our planet (which has a crust of earth) can be called simply Earth. Our planet's moon is named Luna. The sun is called Sol; its planets belong to the Sol system. The universe doesn't have a name. I'm emphatically not suggesting that we rename all these articles to their Latin/Greek names (though they should be noted); only that we employ the proper capitalizations rather than a fragile convention that was chosen for the sake of convenience rather than proper grammar. —UpdateNerd (talk) 10:08, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Sun, Moon, and Solar System are all proper nouns referring to specific astronomical things or bodies. Sun is the proper name of the Solar System's star. Moon is the proper name for Earth's moon. Sol, Luna, etc. are alternate names. The rules of grammar upper-case proper names. In this Wikipedia style is correct. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:21, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply, though I disagree that they're proper names, as explained above. UpdateNerd (talk) 11:25, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Take 'Sol' for instance. Sol is the Latin word for Sun, as it is in other languages. The English word is "Sun". Both are proper names for the star. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:30, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Too bad trips to Luna are almost impossible to make, if it were not for how expensive they are in terms of fuel for the rocket, spacesuit and water cost znd so on, right? I mean, up to now, only three missions could land there: the one carrying Laika the dog, which I think was called Soyuz or something like that, the first mssion in 1965 and the second one, the most well-known of all, Apollo 11 in 1969 (or maybe it was Apollo 13, I cannot remember very well because I was not even born by then.) --Fandelasketchup (talk) 12:15, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
The difference being that Sol is the personification of the sun, just as we personify planets with Roman god names like Jupiter. The word sun doesn't have the same distinction. UpdateNerd (talk) 11:57, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Please see Sun#Name and etymology, a good summary of the words 'Sol' and 'Sun'. The most common upper-case mistake I find (and it's not that common) is to confuse the words sunlight and Sun, but the star, which most people take for granted and never think about, has a proper name. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:13, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
I'm well aware of the section, but the problem is that that's just our evolving wiki-interpretation of the etymology, not a proper explanation of correct grammar. The sun has acquired the name Sun (and the universe Universe, and so on), but that's just the outcome of colloquialism deemed proper for day-to-day convenience (on the internet). UpdateNerd (talk) 13:24, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

The NASA Style Guide] says:

Capitalize the names of planets (e.g., “Earth,” “Mars,” “Jupiter”). Capitalize “Moon” when referring to Earth’s Moon; otherwise, lowercase “moon” (e.g., “The Moon orbits Earth,” “Jupiter’s moons”). Capitalize “Sun” when referring to our Sun but not to other suns. Do not capitalize “solar system” and “universe.” Another note on usage: “Earth,” when used as the name of the planet, is not preceded by “the”; you would not say “the Neptune” or “the Venus.” When “earth” is lowercased, it refers to soil or the ground, not the planet as a whole. Do use “the” in front of “Sun” and “Moon” as applicable. See the list below for capitalization of words containing “sun” and “moon.”

I think it would be good if WP followed their advice on universe and solar system, and if we clarified that in phrases like "the moon rose" or "the sun rose" we're talking about the apparation we see, not the astronomical body, which did not "rise" in any sense. But the astronomers and capitalization buffs tend to push more toward caps than NASA or I would, right Randy? Dicklyon (talk) 03:18, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Phrases such as 'the Moon rose in the east' actually do refer to the physical Moon, even though it is not itself rising but seems to rise from a Earth-centric perspective, so should remain in caps as an astronomical context. 'Getting some sun' and similar phrases would be lowercased as they refer to sunlight (I've made edits to spell out the entire word at times). Probably once a day the thought crosses my mind (or is it Mind?) that the thing in the sky is a star, even when it is seen 'rising' or 'setting'. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:23, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
The fact that we are describing an illusory phenomenon, not a real one, is what makes the case nonastronomical. UpdateNerd (talk) 12:24, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
The Sun or the Moon rising in the east is far from an illusory phenomenon. Yes, the descriptor 'rising' pertains to the point of view illusion, but the thing being described as rising is either a star or a probable fragment of the Earth condensing into what is now its satellite. The named astronomical bodies are contained within the phrase, but are not directly affiliated with the part of the phrase which incorrectly embraces the illusion. If the phenomena is being described with a compound word (i.e. sunrise) that would be lower-cased, but a stand-alone proper name used in the phrasing still refers to the thing itself. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:39, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Randy, no matter how you rationalize it, you're way out of step with reality. Dicklyon (talk) 22:01, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Thought you knew that. In n-grams and sources you'll find that "moon", "sun", and "solar system" will not be primarily upper-cased. People lower-case them out of pure habit - a nonthinking rote action. Wikipedia takes the stand that these are names of something real (take about stepping into reality!), that "Sun" is the proper name of Earth's closest star and "Moon" is the proper name for that enormous collection of rock and soil floating overhead. Like these things aren't supposed to have proper names, according to n-grams. But yes, Sun, Moon, and Earth, when referring to the things themselves, are upper-cased on Wikipedia while being lower-cased in lots of fiction and non-fiction. And that casing should stay per, if nothing else, common sense and the accuracy and improvement of the encyclopedia. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:08, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Well, I'm not likely to accept your rationalization over the "pure habit" of the vast majority of sources. I bet a lot of people see the moon and sun rise and set without ever thinking in terms of astronomy, a habit that was well developed before astronomy came along and explained how universal gravitation could explain all this. These are not what are meant by astronomical context. Dicklyon (talk) 15:51, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Based on what NASA suggests, you can interpret the "the" in front of moon or sun as indicating not the astronomical context for which they suggest caps. Dicklyon (talk) 15:54, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Concerning the Sun rising: Emily Dickinson, along with Steeples, Squirrels, and Bobolinks. Seriously, if the Sun in the context "The Sun rose in the east" isn't the physical star then what are they talking about? This shouldn't be in the guideline, which is why I reverted (bold, revert, discuss). Randy Kryn (talk) 18:21, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
That was not a revert, when you changed sun to Sun; it was a reversal from what everyone can see the guideline says. And we can grant that poets often have their own style; that's not what's relevant here. Dicklyon (talk) 18:57, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
It was a revert of an example that was added a few hours earlier (the upper case 'Sun' was in my edit summary, the revert was of the entire newly added example). Still, "What is perceived as rising if not the Sun? What orb of light floats above the land, which can apply its coat of light, star glare." asks a poet. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:17, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
@Randy Kryn:You refer to the perception of the light of the Sun, not the orb itself. Keeping in mind that any observation we make with the naked eye is of old light, which no longer represents the object. You could say the Sun appears to rise, but saying authoritatively that it does is both false and nonastronomical. UpdateNerd (talk) 08:21, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
I think that interpretation is a nice middle ground between the current conventions and what I would like. It basically agrees with my above, but allows for the capitalization of Sun and Moon when referring to the celestial bodies in a more astronomical context. I think when you are talking about the bodies in a more cerebral/perceptual way, not involving astronomical relationships, then you could keep "the sun" and "the moon" lowercase somewhat more often.
I think there is a clear case to at least modify the MOS as such: The words sun, earth, moon and solar system are capitalized (as proper names) when used to refer to a specific celestial body in an astronomical context. The next sentence of the MOS uses the negative of that qualifier, so it makes sense to add here to eliminate contradictory info, as I just boldly did. UpdateNerd (talk) 05:28, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes, do that. Also where it says "In the case of compounds with generic terms such as comet and galaxy (but not star or planet), the generic is retained at the end of the name and capitalized as part of it (Halley's Comet is the most famous of the periodic comets; astronomers describe the Andromeda Galaxy as a spiral galaxy)", that's also contrary to common usage and the recommendation of at least some style guides. Since Halley's comet and Andromeda galaxy are commonly that way in reliable sources, it makes no sense for WP to have such odd guidance. But there it is. Dicklyon (talk) 05:47, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Strange inconsistency. The name of the galaxy is simply Andromeda, and we should follow the same logic as with the Milky Way. The MOS says to avoid including "galaxy" with its name. I think Andromeda Galaxy belongs at Andromeda (galaxy), and should not appear the former way in prose.
Since Halley's Comet and Bode's Galaxy include a possessive, I think they're assumed to be proper nouns. But I think that's mistaken and improper grammar. Colloquialisms shouldn't be converted to conventions even if they're frequently repeated. If we interpret Halley's and Bode's to be the proper noun name, and the generic classification to only be clarifying what type of object it is, we can follow the same logic everywhere. UpdateNerd (talk) 08:14, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
  • N-gram indicates that we should capitalize the “G” in “Andromeda Galaxy”... the capitalized version is significantly more common than lower case. This was persuasive the last time we discussed the issue. Has something changed? Blueboar (talk) 10:58, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Capital G became more prominent c. 2000, which illustrates my above point about the internet changing the way capitalizations are sometimes repeated. That shouldn't affect more longstanding, unrefuted grammar conventions. UpdateNerd (talk) 11:06, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
No, the cap G never became more prominent. The n-grams are counting titles and headings, while we only care about use in sentences for determining whether sources treat it as a proper name. The first book I checked has it mostly lowercase in the text, but contributes a huge number of hits to the caps count. I think that's typical. Dicklyon (talk) 21:55, 11 May 2019 (UTC)


Sun and Moon and astronomical context

This n-gram search illustrates when Sun is in astronomical context or not. Generic uses (the sun was shining, the sun was setting, the sun was hot, etc.) use lowercase, while astronomical uses (the Sun was born, the Sun was formed, the Sun was made, etc.) use uppercase. Similarly, the moon was full, shining, rising, up, bright, out, etc., or the Moon was formed, captured, made, once, born, etc. I don't think it's that complicated, Randy. Dicklyon (talk) 04:40, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with almost all of your examples, and support the "astronomical context" language. Many of your examples actually mean "sunlight" and not the Sun, and the lower-case "half moon", etc. is already in place. The only example I disagree with is the one that was boldly added in the MOS and then removed by another editor, "The sun rose". In that particular language the Sun is referenced as a proper noun, even if the context is pov and incorrect. "The Sun" does not "rise", but "The Sun" is perceived as rising. Slight but important difference. I do not object strongly to "The sun rose at 6 a.m.", and wouldn't be surprised if it is used as a MOS example, but my point is that this combination of words references the astronomical body although in an incorrect context. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:09, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
That's just wrong. The sun rising is not about astronomy. Look at sources. Dicklyon (talk) 14:42, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

In light of this widespread agreement, I propose we put back UpdateNerd's edit to illustrate it. Anyone (other than Randy the great capitalizer) object? Dicklyon (talk) 02:11, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

There is also the topic of the universe at large. Perhaps when discussing its formation and cosmology, particularly in light of string and multiverse theory (which suggest that there are more than one), we should capitalize it—same logic as with the Solar System. But in a nonastronomical context, such as "Alan Watts compares the universe to a fishbowl," you are way outside of talking about the proper noun. There's no reason to capitalize generic terms in that realm. UpdateNerd (talk) 08:13, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
UpdateNerd, what you are proposing is "capitalisation for distinction". I understand that this is specifically oppose by the MOS in a general sense. However, the present guidance is, in effect, to capitalise universe and solar system for distiction (as is the Galaxy, when referring to the Milky Way). I would agree with you that the capitalisation is largely incorrect. What constitutes a proper name is poorly understood in these types of cases. It is a fallacy, both logically and onomastically to state: specific referent = proper name = capitalise. These three sets are not mutually inclusive. However, this is the arguement most commonly percieved to be correct but ill-founded. It persists here because: "My grade five teacher taught me (at grade five) everything I needed to know about proper names. She can't have been wrong (I was only ten)." I have tried to make such changes as you are indicating and only learnt that there are some arguements that are unwinnable - no matter how right you are. Good luck. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:16, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
No, it isn't "capitalisation for distinction"; it's the proper formatting of grammar, because generic nouns aren't proper nouns. UpdateNerd (talk) 02:10, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, don't get that. Above, you have suggested capitalising universe in a particular context but below, you state: "[it] is almost certainly not a proper noun in all uses." Capitalising universe for our universe in the context of other universes is certainly "capitalisation for distinction" - particularly when you consider that a key distinction between proper names and appelatives (common names) is that proper names are not descriptive. The word universe is descriptive of a concept. The same can be said of "the Galaxy". Yes, appelatives (generic nouns) are not proper nouns. But placing a capital in front of a word does not transform it into a proper name/proper noun. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 05:14, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
I have the feeling we're talking at cross purposes. You should never capitalize Galaxy on its own, and the MOS discourages including the word altogether when referring to the Milky Way. Why are we even talking about that word? A better example would be "solar system", of which there are many, but ours is selfishly called the Solar System. In that context, it's a proper noun, which is the only reason it's capitalized. It gets a little more complicated and subtle when discussing universes, probably because of their apparently infinite size; some multiverse models stem from the infinite size of 'the' Universe, which say that at yuge scales it begins to repeat itself. Hence, there could be other "universes" which are not 'ours'. All I am saying here is simply that the logic we apply to Moon/moons and Sun/suns should apply with all other examples. Incidentally, this has nothing to do with astronomy, just plain and simple grammar. (Another example I brought up last time around is fictional universes. We wouldn't capitalize the word when discussing the Star Trek universe; there are other philosophical and rhetorical examples, and ideally this should be reflected in the MOS.) UpdateNerd (talk) 05:46, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
UpdateNerd, OK, we will forget about "the Galaxy", though there were reasons that I referred to it. However, I still don't get what you are saying re the universe and the solar system. The problem I have is that the comments you have made just don't appear consistent with each other, let alone, onomastic theory. In that context, it's a proper noun, which is the only reason it's ["the Solar System" is] capitalized. Proper names are capitalised by orthographic convention but capitalisation of a name ≠ proper name. There are lots of reasons we capitalise words in English that are not actually proper names. Some of these are fallacies. Please see proper name. Proper names are not descriptive (at least, not now), yet solar system is descriptive. Proper names do not necessarily have one referent: there is more than one person called Peter Williams. Conversely, a single or specific referent does not mean a noun is a proper name. The dog has a specific referent (by virtue of the specificity of the definite article, the), however; we would not write the Dog nor does writing the Dog make it a proper name just because we have capitalised the word. Is not, capitalising the word/phrase, in either case, a case of "capitalising for distinction" - particularly if we are trying to distinguish our particular dog or solar system from more generic dogs, solar systems (or universes)? That is the function of the definite article. You have also said: Perhaps when discussing [the universe] ... we should capitalize it—same logic as with the Solar System. It assumes that there is a "good" basis for capitalising solar system. Fictional universes are a separate case - where they are trademarks, these are capitalised by the orthographic convention to do so, and not by an assertion that it is a proper name. Given that you have also said "[it - universe] is almost certainly not a proper noun in all uses", I still don't get "it" (what your position is) - since there are inconsistencies in your comments, let alone with onomastic theory. sign late Cinderella157 (talk) 22:28, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Re universe/Universe, nothing is being said here that hasn't already been said and no solution is being proposed that hasn't already been opposed. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:45, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
That is saying next to nothing. Can you point to a reliable source (not Wikipedia) that capitalizes universe when referring to the concept generally? Alternatively, explain or quote the exact argument that justifies capitalizing all instances of the word universe, which is almost certainly not a proper noun in all uses. UpdateNerd (talk) 02:10, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
I already pointed to prior discussions. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Nobody here has ever proposed capping all instances of universe. But some (mostly Randy Kryn, the great capitalizer) do propose the capping for distinction as a "place name", unlike NASA's recommendation. In sources, caps are not common. Dicklyon (talk) 14:50, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
@Dicklyon: I really want to reopen the discussion of making 'universe' lower case. As has been pointed out, that was never actually decided in past discussions. (Please be specific about where to look if that's not the case.) Although there is some logic to capitalizing proper-noun celestial bodies within the universe, declaring that the universe itself is an astronomical body is really quite illogical. Plus, the sources strongly favor the traditional lower case.
As I've tried to explain in past rants, even if you believe in a multiverse, in which the universe is 'one' of 'many', this is actually not the case in many models, which use the words interchangeably and only refer to multiple 'universes' in the context of 'neighborhoods'. (The models with extra spatial dimensions are beyond the realm of human science, and not worth incorporating into how we address grammar on Wikipedia.) UpdateNerd (talk) 06:19, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
There was an RFC some place a few years ago; I don't recall how conclusive it was, but the astro folks really wanted to cap universe as a name, even though sources mostly don't. Dicklyon (talk) 08:52, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
As pointed out above, lots of previous discussion, entirely inconclusive due to the crazy nature of the RFC processes, etc. I think the weird close that was appealed found a consensus to oppose the statement "The word 'universe' shall be capitalized (as a proper name) when used in an astronomical context to refer specifically to the body that is everything that physically exists." – yet a consensus to support the approximately equivalent question "Shall The word 'universe' be capitalized when used in an astronomical context to refer to our specific Universe?" So yes, it still needs to be resolved with a simple orderly RFC question I think. Dicklyon (talk) 22:33, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
This has been discussed ad nauseam and closed without a consensus several times. A reasonable case can be made for sometimes capitalized or never capitalized, and while I have a preference, I'd prefer to see a conclusion one way or another than the mixed (sloppy) use we have now. In the past I proposed that a random number, such as a lottery result, be used to make the choice. SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:23, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
SchreiberBike, unfortunately that would just start a new debate on how to generate the random number. CThomas3 (talk) 05:05, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Based on what seems to be a lack of consensus, we should follow the status quo as established in the media outside of Wikipedia. That means using the lowercase form until it can properly be established what difference there is between the universe in an 'astronomical' and non-astronomical context. I don't see how the former can even be a thing when describing everything that exists.
(And for the weasley minded, I'll reiterate my above point that most 'multiverse' theories still depend on the entire universe being one 'quilt' with multiple patches—not a 'slice' in a larger loaf of bread.) UpdateNerd (talk) 04:48, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
I think you're kneading your metaphors there. Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
I've started a discussion at Talk:Universe#Capitalization of Universe, which is where this subdiscussion should be taking place. Please comment there if you have the time. UpdateNerd (talk) 07:13, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

See this search for "the sun rose" in wikipedia. Generally lowercase when not in a composition title. In one case, Sun is capped in an astrology context. Is that part of what we intend? Dicklyon (talk) 02:53, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

For "the moon rose", also mostly lowercase; even some about eclipses, which I could imagine going either way, depending on whether talking about eclipse in astronomical context versus the appearance. Dicklyon (talk) 02:53, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

If the star or moon is being referenced in those statements then they should be upper-cased per proper name. How would you case the sentence "Suddenly, the Rocky Mountains rose up on the horizon" or "Suddenly, the rocky mountains rose up on the horizon"? Still a proper name in either case. The Sun is the name of a star, and is still the name of the star when being incorrectly said to be rising or setting. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:34, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
re: Rocky Mountains vs rocky mountains ... the capitalized version is a proper name (referring to the specific chain of mountains in western North America), the lowercase is not... it is generic (referring to any mountains that happen to be rocky... perhaps the Himalayas). Apply this to Sun/sun... moon/Moon. Blueboar (talk) 11:46, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Exactly. And in the phrase 'The sun rose' the word 'sun' refers to a specific thing (like the Rocky Mountains refer to a specific thing) and upper-cased as a proper name. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:39, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
I'm afraid that if you want to capitalize sun in "The sun rose", you have the weight of centuries of English usage against you. That's too much weight to bear. Deor (talk) 17:55, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Should be a common sense exception to the English language trend, if only because of, common sense (the phrase references the real Sun, even though it gets the individual perception vs science wrong). Your alternate name is one of the best. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:12, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

The Bahamas

We currently state that "The Bahamas" is incorrect at MOS:THECAPS. I see this was recently changed and reverted, with some discussion in the edit summaries.

The article at The Bahamas#Etymology includes a sourced statement that "The Bahamas" is correct. (Hence the article name includes "The".) I understand there may be sources for "the Bahamas", but the Government of The Bahamas consistently uses "The Bahamas" as the short form name on its own website (e.g. Overview of The Bahamas). Shouldn't our usage be consistent with what the country calls itself? – Wdchk (talk) 03:27, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but as has been argued over and over again, (1) official names are not automatically followed here (2) we follow reliable sources for content but not for styling, which is based on our MoS. Please note that I am not supporting either capitalizing or not "the" in this context, merely arguing against automatically following official styles. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:54, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
I will also note that the “official” website linked to above is very inconsistent. Yes, it uses “The Bahamas” (upper case “T”) at the top of the page, but in running text we frequently find “the Bahamas” (lower case “t”) and even “Bahamas” (no “the” at all). Blueboar (talk) 13:44, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
I understand both the above points. I think what's still bothering me, though, is that currently it looks like we are being inconsistent with ourselves. WP:OFFICIAL is about article titles. At some point, "The Bahamas" has been accepted as the article title. That is the current state. But according to the MOS, if we link to The Bahamas, that is incorrect. Maybe editors can come up with examples to show this is not unusual, but right now it looks like an inconsistency that I have trouble explaining. – Wdchk (talk) 22:21, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
Don't all Wikipedia articles begin with an initial cap? If so, a page called "The Bahamas" about "the Bahamas" is appropriate, right? —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 22:34, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
@Eyer: Not by my reading of WP:THE. The article about "the Bahamas" would be Bahamas. Compare United Kingdom, the article about "the United Kingdom". – Wdchk (talk) 23:07, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
Good point. I really don't care whether it's "The Bahamas" or "the Bahamas", I just want to make things consistent. —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 23:14, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
Consistent? In Wikipedia? HaHaHaHaHa... that’s a good one! oh, wait... you’re serious... sorry. Blueboar (talk) 00:15, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
The title should just be Bahamas (same as United Kingdom, etc.), and use "the" (not capital "The") in mid-sentence if the construction seems to require the definite article. This is not one of those ultra-rare cases like The Hague where virtually all writers and style guides agree that the "The" is required. Most of the other cases that conventionally required this a few generations no longer do ("the Camargue", "the Ukraine", "the Gambia", and so on), and the few that still do usually retain it (like "the Levant"), generally don't take capital "The" in modern writing. Even "The Hague" is increasingly written "the Hague", and can appear as just "Hague" in various contexts these days ("a Hague-based organisation").  — AReaderOutThataway t/c 06:21, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Capitalization of "Colonel of the Regiment"

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This discussion has moved back to the article TP. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:20, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Please may I refer editors to the discussion under way here: Talk:Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet#Capitalisation.

As will be seen, my case for writing "Colonel of the Regiment" is supported by the relevant Wikipedia article and also The London Gazette. To disallow the format used in the latter would be the same as saying that the proceedings in the British Houses of Parliament are not recorded in Hansard.

I trust my case will be allowed. Arbil44 (talk) 09:39, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with that analogy . It seems to me it would instead be like disregarding how Hansard capitalises Member of Parliament. Nonetheless, let's see what others think about whether Colonel of the Regiment should be capitalised. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:30, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

What I meant, Cordless Larry, is to deny the format for The London Gazette as being the final word on the matter, would be the same as denying the veracity of both publication's manner of format. The London Gazette and Hansard are both British publications which cannot be argued with. I expressed myself clumsily in my agitation. BTW, I see that here it is capitalised here: http://thepeerage.com/p12573.htm#i125728 Arbil44 (talk) 12:50, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Can anyone help us out here? The question is, should the title Colonel of the Regiment be capitalised (or are there circumstances in which it should be, and others when it shouldn't)? Cordless Larry (talk) 10:40, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Wrong place/wrong question: There is an extensive discussion at Talk:Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet#Capitalisation. This is fairly clearly covered by MOS:JOBTITLES. Appointed Colonel of the Regiment of the 2nd Battalion 46th Regiment of Foot is not the same as Appointed colonel of the 2nd Battalion 46th Regiment of Foot. The former is the title and the latter is an abbreviated form, not unlike the distinction between King of France and French king. Looking at Talk:Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet#Capitalisation, this appears to have been "resolved" by adopting the former construction rather than by arguing for capitalisation in the latter. If the OP is to advocate for caps in the latter case, the RfC is malformed. It also appears to be fairly specific to the article, in which case, it would be more appropriate to raise the RfC there (where the context exists), while notifying this page of the RfC. If this is not resolved by adopting the former construction - why not? Is the "issue" is about capitalising the title when it stands alone (ie colonel of the regiment is an ... as opposed to a specific title per Appointed Colonel of the Regiment of the 2nd Battalion 46th Regiment of Foot? Would this be a case of "capitalisation for distinction" of the phrase? In that case, italics would be more appropriate. In any case, the RfC appears malformed, since the context for an informed comment is missing. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:34, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Cinderella157, thank you for your response. I have requested Cordless Larry reply here since, regrettably, I still do not fully understand whether, or not, we can use 'Colonel of the Regiment' on the Sir Charles Asgill page, or whether we must go elsewhere for the answer. He is much more familiar with Wikipedia than I am, and it was he who requested I post my OP here. Arbil44 (talk) 16:19, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Cinderella157's response is that Colonel of the Regiment should be capitalised, but not the abbreviated form colonel, Arbil44, and that if we want to propose a change to that rule, I'll need to reword the request for comment above. The reason I brought this here was because it also applies to the content at Colonel#Colonel of the Regiment. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:45, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
To Colonel#Colonel of the Regiment, please see duke. It would only be captitalised when it refers to a specific dukedom - eg Duke of Normandy. So similarly, colonel of a specific regiment. Caps have been traditionally used to distinguish a phase as a phrase (see MOS:WORDSASWORDS) since typewriters could only otherwise only use underline or quote marks and special fonts added to the cost of typesetting. Word-processing changes all that. Also, government sources are not generally accepted as good sources for guidance on capitalisation (see WP:SPECIALSTYLE), since they tend to over-cap, when compared to more general usage. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
I think we already knew this didn't we? Does this mean that this matter is now resolved and the format used on the Charles Asgill page can stay as is? Arbil44 (talk) 18:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Is Cinderella saying that the ceremonial appointment of 'Colonel of the Regiment' should be capitalised (as opposed to a colonel in a regiment which isn't) - or am I misunderstanding? Then why has the Asgill page been reverted to lower case in the matter of regiments of which he was Colonel? General Whistler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashmer_Whistler was Colonel of the Royal Sussex Regiment (a term used five times on that page), for instance (and I knew him personally and saw his name and appointment in the written form for most of my childhood and teenage life), and the Duke of York is Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, so why is Asgill being treated differently? Will someone please explain in very simple terms so that I might understand? Another example would be - 'Black Rod' (a ceremonial position) performed her duties in the Houses of Parliament yesterday, but I haven't seen that written as 'black rod' anywhere. Arbil44 (talk) 00:14, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Sir William Knollys' article in the ODNB includes the sentence "He retired from office in 1877, and became gentleman usher of the black rod in the same year." Opera hat (talk) 11:20, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Agreed with Cinderella157; in that construction, "Colonel of the Regiment" is a formal title/office being addressed as such, while "colonel" is simply a rank. Compare "He was appointed Postmaster General of the United States" versus "He was promoted to city postmaster in 2017, and chaired a panel of postmasters at a National Association of Postmasters of the United States conference on modernization in 2019." Compare also "Donald Trump is President of the United States" vs. "Trump is the most controversial US president since Andrew Johnson." Cf. also our article on Lord Mayor of London (about the position as such) and our list of lord mayors of London (about people with that job).  — AReaderOutThataway t/c 06:13, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks AReaderOutThataway. Incidentally Asgill's father was Lord Mayor of London in 1757 (and commissioned the golden coach)! Opera hat has put the entire paragraph concerning Asgill's Colonelcies into lower case. Who is going to put capitals back, because if I do I will be banned instantly, without warning, under the COI banner. I absolutely know lower case is wrong, but what happens on Wikipedia when editors don't agree with a course of action? Who is the final arbiter? Arbil44 (talk) 07:18, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Opera hat so that they're aware of this discussion. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:22, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Here's another interesting one, which I did not know about before - "He was appointed third major...". Since he was a major-general at the time, clearly this is another ceremonial position - certainly not one I am familiar with - but the London Gazette has this as 'Third Major' - but apparently the format used by the London Gazette is not accepted. Arbil44 (talk) 09:40, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi Arbil44, Opera hat has added content but is probably unaware of either this discussion or the TP discussion and consensus re caps of Colonel of the Regiment. Please WP:AGF. I am confident that this can be corrected by either Opera hat or Cordless Larry. I would myself if I was clear where the changes of concern have been made were clearly identified to me. Please note that use of caps has changed a lot in the last 200 years, so we don't simply accept a 200 hear old styling - though the terminology "third major" is interesting. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you so much Cinderella157. I will copy and paste the entry here and will change to capitals where they need to be. military personnel, in the UK at least, will know that this is how it should be:

Asgill was promoted to major-general in January 1799.[22] He was appointed Third Major of the 1st Foot Guards in November that year[23] and then Colonel-Commandant of the 2nd Battalion, 46th (South Devonshire) Regiment of Foot on 9 May 1800.[24][25] He went onto half-pay when the 2nd Battalion was disbanded in 1802.[26][27] Promoted to lieutenant general in January 1805,[28] he was appointed Colonel of the 5th West India Regiment in February 1806,[29] of the 85th Regiment of Foot in October 1806,[30] and of the 11th (North Devonshire) Regiment on 25 February 1807.[25][31] He was promoted to general on 4 June 1814.[32]

This edit would be made more complicated by inserting a link to the Wikipedia article on 'Colonel of the Regiment' because that tends to interfere with the otherwise correct wording - and phrasing - used by Opera hat. The only issue here is where some capital letters are needed. Arbil44 (talk) 10:29, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Why is this discussion happening in two places at once? I've just explained my specific changes at Talk:Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet and then came here to reply on the more general issues.
For "third major", a fairly good explanation is here (about ¼ down the page). When I first started adding military biographies to Wikipedia, I used to capitalise all ranks (as in the London Gazette) but Wikipedia house style goes against this. Though "third major", "colonel-commandant" and "colonel" are unique positions within the regiments concerned, the distinction is somewhat arcane to the general reader, so I think that using capitals for some ranks and lower case for others, as proposed by User:Arbil44 above, looks messy and inconsistent and is highly likely to be changed by some drive-by editor in the future. Opera hat (talk) 10:57, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Opera hat - 1) Cordless Larry insisted I post here, and I was only doing as I was told to do. 2) You have hit the nail right on the head wheen you say ranks are not capitalised - they are not - but Colonel of the Regiment is not a rank - it is a 'ceremonial appointment' only and can be held by officers of varying ranks, although as a generalisation only, it is normally held by a general officer. Once this matterr is finally settled, if it ever is, is there any way of locking it in to avoid having to go through all this again? Arbil44 (talk) 11:07, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I suggested posting here to get clarity on the general rule applied across Wikipedia, but discussion of how that rule should be applied to the specific article should indeed go at Talk:Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet#Capitalisation. Opera hat has posted there, so let's resume discussion (if necessary) on the article talk page now that it is clear what the rule is and we're into how to apply it. Cordless Larry (talk) 11:14, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
[edit conflict] I just noticed that you wrote "military personnel, in the UK at least, will know that this is how it should be". I think someone has already mentioned WP:SSF: just because officers or other ranks of a regiment would always refer to the Colonel of their Regiment, it doesn't follow that Wikipedia should do so. Asgill's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography uses lower case for "colonel" and "colonelcy" throughout. Opera hat (talk) 11:20, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Cordless Larry - I wish I knew what 'the final outcome' is - I have no idea whatsoever. Is my edit, above, acceptable, or does it stay as Opera hat amended (to lower case) yesterday? I feel very out of the loop on account of all the reasons you are well aware of. It would seem very clear to me that Cinderella157 is in agreement with me and even offered to re-edit, so I provided that information. I refuse to accept that a lower case for rank follows through to lower case for 'ceremonial position' - would you write black rod or would you write Black Rod? Does this General Whistler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashmer_Whistler count for absolutely nothing too - no less than 5 Colonel of the Regiments there?Arbil44 (talk) 11:26, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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