[WikiEN-l] capitalisation

[JFrost8401 at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/06/03 18:10:17 GMT Daylight Time, jtdirl at hotmail.com 
writes:


> 
> I had an interesting conversation today with a publisher and an academic on 
> the issue of capitalisation. They made the following observations:
> 
> 1. Capitalisation rules seem to differ between American English and British 
> English (or rather American English and all forms of english other than AE). 
> 
> Whereas the former seems nowadays to be following a 'minimal use of caps' 
> policy, non-AE english uses caps far more often.
> 
> 2. This issue has caused considerable problems with American students who 
> come to Europe for summer courses. Europeans see the non-use of caps as 
> 'semi-literate' and regularly dock students marks for it. Americans see non 
> AE use of caps as 'ludicrous' and over the top. (I know from personal 
> experience that the few caps english of AE users has caused bitter anger in 
> my university, where lecturers 'hit the roof' at AE users' insistence of 
> lower-casing names of organisations, electoral processes, governmental 
> offices, etc.)
> 
> 3. Within many academic areas, a major battle has been waged on this issue. 
> To the resentment of non-AE users, AE capitalisation rules increasingly tend 
> 
> to be followed. The reason is purely economic. Publishers see the US as 
> their biggest market, and so publish books in AE or in non-AE but following 
> some of the characteristics of AE in areas like capitalisation. (This has 
> infuriated many non AE-using authors. Last week, one British English author 
> threatened to sue her publisher for 'rewriting' her textbook in AE when it 
> was aimed at a UK market. She accused them of 'dumbing down english to suit 
> Americans'. Some authors, according to the publisher I was talking to, have 
> insisted in their contracts that their books /not/ be rewritten in AE, even 
> when an edition is launched in the US. (American authors may well equally 
> have insisted that their books not be turned into non-AE. As the publisher I 
> 
> was speaking to is British she has no knowledge of such contracts if they 
> exist in the US).
> 
> If this is the case (and both the publisher and academic said so, while both 
> 
> expressing their dislike of AE capitalisation trends and what the latter 
> called the 'wholescale manging of non-AE to suit publishers' profits by 
> trampling over the language use of everyone who isn't American') that does 
> explain the rows over capitalisation on wiki, and how it is AE users like 
> Ec, Mav and Zoe who are so 'anti' capitalisation while it is users of other 
> forms of english other than AE (Tannin, myself, etc) who want it. For if 
> Mav, Ec etc were taught one set of rules on capitalisation usage, we were 
> taught a different one and are infuriated by what, going by what we were 
> taught, seems to be wiki's insistence on wrong use of capitals and non-use 
> of capitals where they should be used.
> 
> In the circumstances, we should apply to the same policy as we apply in 
> general to American english versus British english, ie, respect difference 
> and allow users to set the policy in an individual article, based on /their/ 
> 
> usage of capitals in /their/ version of english. As most of the capitals 
> issue involves AE users changing capitalisation applied by non AE users like 
> 
> Tannin in articles the non AE users have written (like on birds), it 
> suggests that that process should stop and the rules on capitalisation 
> should be amended accordingly. The issue is already causing enough rows 
> outside wiki, with the increasing application of AE rules by publishing 
> houses and style books causing major anger (the publisher said one author 
> called it 'American linguistic imperialism', with AE rules being applied 
> even though they conflict with all the grammar books used outside the US.) 
> The best solution is not to enforce AE capitalisation rules but simply to 
> recognise that different english users worldwide use different rules on this 
> 
> issue and to leave it to users, depending on their linguistic culture, to 
> decide on capitalisation just as they decide on spelling in American 
> English, British English or the various subsets of the latter (Hiberno 
> English, Australian English, etc.)
> 
> JT
> 

Interesting; although I'd spotted some odd ( to a non-American) "missed" 
capitals, in articles, it never occurred to me that there was a genuine cultural 
difference. 

It also explains why from the Europe/Oz viewpoint this debate looked a bit 
like US v the rest, although I must admit that paranoia might also have been a 
factor. 

I think JT's email helps to explain how this controversy has arisen , and why 
it has been so difficult to resolve.

Jim


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