Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD/Capitalization

Prepositional phrases

I believe that propositional phrases overlap with the phrasal verbs indicated in the guidelines (in fact, I thought they were the point of the guidelines, but I've been asked about them). I recently moved these articles to these titles:

which I think matches the Chicago Manual of Style (capitalize "stressed" words) and AP Style (composition titles, principal words). It is how both the New York Times and the London Times capitalize them.

I'd like to make it explicit, either:

Capitalize every noun, verb and adverb. This includes all forms of the verb to be (e.g., be, been, am, is, was, were), and the beginnings of prepositional phrases (e.g., out of, off of)

or:

Capitalize only those prepositions that are the first or last word of the title, or are part of a phrasal verb (e.g., "Walk On" or "Give Up the Ghost") or compound preposition (e.g. "Out of", "Off of").

I also think these should become a "composition title" section of WP:MOSCAPS, since they should apply to all titled works, not just musical works. But I'll raise that there. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sounds good - nice work! i'm just pondering how to phrase explicit rules clearly.

Capitalize the first preposition in compound prepositions ("Bat Out of Hell", "Get Off of My Cloud"), prepositions that are part of a phrasal verb ("Give Up the Ghost", "Wake Up Little Susie") and prepositions that are the first or last word in a title (On the Beach, "Walk On", "Start Me Up").

that sounds okay but it glosses over the tricky bit: distinguishing when a preposition is part of a phrasal verb and when it's a verb + prepositon. why do we have song titles capitalized as "Live with Me" and "Live With Me"?? Sssoul (talk) 07:11, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your second example there isn't capitalized Live With Me -- the "with" is lowercase in the article reached by that "from other capitalisation" redirect. A preposition is part of the phrasal verb when it doesn't work with what would be the object of the preposition: "Pass Up the Opportunity" vs. "Pass up the Chimney". "up the opportunity" isn't where you're passing in the first; "up the chimney" is where you're passing in the second. I'm sure there are less awkward examples (or I hope, anyway). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:26, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sorry about that "Live With Me" - i was going by the hatnote at "Live with Me", and didn't see the redirect.

it's not that i'm personally asking you for instructions in distinguishing phrasal verbs from prepositional phrases; i'm saying that if these rules are going to be added to the MOS, they need to provide clear guidance on that question. it's too much to expect normal people to grasp the difference. so how can it be phrased/illustrated clearly & communicatively for MOS purposes? Sssoul (talk) 07:56, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) the phrasing you've got now looks good - but if i can make one observation/suggestion: since "Walk On" is an example of two rules at once (the last word in a title as well as a phrasal verb) it's somewhat ambiguous. "Give Up the Ghost" is clear-cut, of course; if you wanted a second unambiguous example, some candidates would be "Wake Up Little Susie", "Call Off the Search" or "Waiting Out the Storm". Sssoul (talk) 17:50, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. Would you want to make the edit? I don't want it to seem like "mine". -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

all right then - i guess i'll go with Call Off the Whatever, so we don't have two "Up" examples ... Sssoul (talk) 18:15, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]