Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 25

The following discussion 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.

  The RFC author is a CHECKUSER BLOCKED AS A SOCKPUPPET ACCOUNT.[1] RFC participants are invited to continue or terminate the RFC as they see fit. Alsee (talk) 08:08, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

• The example isn't all that puzzling to me... "King of France" is a specific title applied to one person at a time, while "French king" is generic. But if that example causes confusion, I would suggest replacing it with something like "Duke of Cambridge" (plural "Dukes of Cambridge") for the specific title, and "an English duke" (plural "English dukes") for the generic. Blueboar (talk) 13:02, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Take another look at the example. Both "King of France" and "French king" refer to a specific person, namely Louis XVI. "King of France" is capitalized, not because it refers to one person, but because it is a "correct formal title," whatever that means. Great scott (talk) 17:16, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes... King of France" is a specific title, a proper noun, while "French king" is a generic description. Blueboar (talk) 17:22, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps we are looking at different guidelines? The one I am looking at says: "When the correct formal title is treated as a proper name (e.g., King of France; it is correct to write Louis XVI was King of France but Louis XVI was the French king)." The stress here is on whether or not the title is correct and formal, leading the reader to associate lower casing with incorrectness and informality. Great scott (talk) 17:56, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

"French King" was never a title, it was a description combining a national adjective (French) with a job description (king). King of France, King of the Franks, and King of the French were all formal titles applied to the French king at various times. --Jayron32 12:10, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

• About a month or so ago, I tried to get clarification on this topic. Lack of participation & disagreement among those who did participate over to capitalize or not capitalize, was frustratingly unsuccessful. The inconsistency is really bad at the US state governors & lieutenant governors bio articles :( GoodDay (talk) 13:42, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Just a few thoughts... The lack of participation might reflect the fact that this is something that the broader community does not see a need to be consistent about. Could it be that the community feels that, as long as we are consistent within any given article, there is no need to be consistent across the entire project? Also, a lot depends on the specific title. We may be trying to devise universal "rules" for something that is not universal. Blueboar (talk) 14:31, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't see this RfC as addressing the project wide vs article by article question. What we have here is a rule illustrated by various examples, some of which follow the rule and others that do not. It's poor draftmanship. I have a collection of style manuals and lower casing titles is a pretty standard rule that they all seem to agree on. Great scott (talk) 16:51, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Huh? I think the examples follow the rule... the specific title (King of France) is capitalized while the generic descriptive phrase (French king) is not. That seem clear enough to me. Perhaps any confusion is due to disagreement over what the rule actually is (or perhaps disagreement over what it should be). Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

George Pataki uses "...53rd Governor of New York" & Eliot Spitzer uses "...54th Governor of New York". But, David Paterson uses "...55th governor of New York" & Andrew Cuomo uses "...56th governor of New York". This is quite common inconsistencies. GoodDay (talk) 17:22, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

I meant consistency among style manuals, not politicians. Why is "King of France" more of a specific title than "French king"? I think it may be time to consider the possibility that the distinction being made is just gibberish. Is CMOS wrong to lower case "king of Jordan" and "king of England"? Great scott (talk) 22:54, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Because French king is not a title, any more than French bread. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:31, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Thinking about it in terms of right and wrong won't bring a satisfactory conclusion. The fact that there are inconsistencies between style manuals means that it's fine for our style manual to have gone one particular way on this issue. Primergrey (talk) 23:24, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Primergrey: absolutely right. Aside from the unusual context in which WP articles are styled (requiring some kind of centralised guidance), no publisher woud need its own MOS if there were a high level of consistency in external writing and among external style guides. CMOS occasionally doesn't even follow its own advice (though they have made spotty attempts to clean that up, progressively—see the newly released 17th edition). I see inconsistent reasoning just in this thread. Tony (talk) 01:33, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

@Tony1: I notice that you wrote a

*" Unlike the actual MOS, that's simple, concise, consistent, and makes sense. You are misleading those beginners! Work on it some more. Great scott (talk

) 02:48, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I vote to replace all three bulleted examples with Tony1's version of the guideline, as quoted above. Great scott (talk) 03:42, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

There's another subtlety about the example Louis XVI was King of France. If it's correct to omit a determiner here, and not write instead "Louis XVI was the king of France", then "King of France" would be classed grammatically as a proper noun phrase rather than a common noun phrase, and so would be capitalized. What this example shows, I think, is that, unfortunately, capitalization in contemporary English cannot be reduced to a simple set of guidelines. I would write:

• Louis XVI was King of France – proper noun phrase, specific title Louis XVI held at the time
• Louis XVI was the king of France – common noun phrase, generic title
• As King of France, Louis XVI had the power to ... – proper noun phrase, specific title held at the time
• Like all the kings of France, Louis XVI had the power to ... – common noun phrase, generic title
• She saw the King of France walking towards her – examples like this seem to be becoming increasingly disputed. Grammatically, "King of France" here is a common noun phrase, shown by the determiner, but it's a weak proper noun phrase in that semantically it refers to a specific individual. She saw the King walking towards her – to me the same argument applies, but in other discussions when strong or weak proper noun phrases are reduced to the head noun, it has been repeatedly upheld here that capitalization should be removed. Thus I would write Sutton Park is now in Birmingham. The Park has an area of ... whereas the consensus has clearly been to de-capitalize the second occurrence of "park".
• The [k|K]ing of France awarded knighthoods – if this means a specific person, then it's a weak proper noun phrase and I would capitalize it, but if it means any king of France, then it's a generic title and I would not capitalize it. One way of conceptualizing the distinction (which I used to use in teaching computational linguistics) is to imagine a robot trying to decide whether or not the phrase refers to a stored image of a particular person.

Peter coxhead (talk) 08:53, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

You think an initial "the" changes the capitalization? That's a new one on me. What about "Louis XVI was French king"? The section we are considering compares that format X of Foo to the format Fooian X, as Blueboar ably pointed out above. It's not making a point about the use of "the." Great scott (talk) 09:42, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Concur with Peter_coxhead, word for word, which surprises me. I expected to have some kind of quibble, given the number of examples, but I even agree with his assessment of where usage is shifting, and why some of these are common versus proper (and strong versus weak). Our only divergence seems to be habitual; I would never today write "The Park has an area of ...", though I often used to, at least for words less everyday than park ("The Foo Bar Foundation was founded in 1950. The Foundation is ..."). Style guides increasingly advise against this, when they cover it at all (some might still go for "She saw the King walking toward her"; the cases are distinguishable in at least three ways, but I don't recall if any of CMoS, NHR, etc., ever get into it). I would just add to Peter's list Louis XVI was a king of France, for completion. Great_scott: It would be Louis XVI was French king, if anyone ever used such an awkward construction; more likely "Louis XVI was a French king" or "Louis XVI was the French king", depending on intent/context. In either case it's a description, containing a common noun and a proper-name-derived adjective; it's not a title. Anyway, I also agree that Tony1's tutorial wording is better, but it doesn't cover every nuance; we'd need to use it as a base, and either add to it in situ, or add a bullet or two after it or something.

Radical idea: There is, however, a simplifying approach. We have a "down style" here (default to lower case for everything unless there's a reason to capitalize), and we could really stick to it. We could simply be clear that we capitalize such titles only a) when the title is prepended to or surrounds a name ("Count Dracula", "King Louis XVI of France"); b) when the title stands in for a specific individual's name ("President Trump went to meet the Queen [i.e., Elizabeth II] but was turned away at the Buckingham Palace gates."); and c) when discussing the office/position as the thing itself ("The role of Vice President of the United States has shifted markedly in the last 200 years" – and do this last thing only for high office, not for things like "Her responsibilities as Peoria city attorney included ..."). Do not capitalize otherwise. If it comes after a name ("Louis XVI was the king of France who ..."), is plural ("Three dukes of Cambridge in a row had gout"), is adjectival ("a new presidential candidacy"), or whatever other circumstance, then just lower-case it. (I think this would affect none of Peter's examples except the first one, rendering it as "Louis XVI was king of France".) This would not maximally please all of the Proper name (philosophy) people and traditional style sticklers (including me), but it would make things much simpler here and reduce the presently continuous and circular disputes about this stuff. Regardless, I do agree with the OP that the current wording is potentially confusing to a lot of editors and may be why there's so much dispute about this. It's s understood by some but not by others, so one revision or another is in order.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:30, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

So what about "In 1815, Welsley was made Duke of Wellington"... do we now down case "duke"? I think we need to get some input from the nobility and peerage wiki project... as this will impact their articles a lot. Blueboar (talk) 20:32, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Good idea to alert relevant projects. Hopefully there's not a lot of ours and theirs involved though. Primergrey (talk) 01:15, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

@Blueboar: The rule is that when a title substitutes for a personal name, it's upper cased. That happens so often with Wellesley that people think his name was "Wellington." In this case, the author gives the title as a title, a separate and distinct thing from the personal name. So I'd say lower case "duke." Great scott (talk) 09:42, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Actually, his name did change to Wellington (upon being granted that title)... but I understand what you mean. What does that have to do with the capitalization of "Duke/duke"? Blueboar (talk) 14:19, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

And Duke of Wellington is overwhelmingly more common. This ngram minimizes the difference; many of the hits for duke of Wellington are scanning errors. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:27, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Just popping in to say that I concur with SMcCandlish's analysis and recommendations. Deor (talk) 20:52, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I also think SMcCandlish should get a free hand. I don't necessarily agree with his analysis or proposals. But he can't make it any worse than it is now. Great scott (talk) 05:55, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Would prefer an ear; my chest full of hands is already overflowing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:52, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

"In 1815, Welsley was made Duke of Wellington" would be a "keep the caps" case, because it's treatment of the title as the thing in and of itself, like "The role of Vice President of the United States has shifted markedly". But: "Welsley was not the most respected duke of Wellington in history – the third and seventh dukes of this title were supported as claimants to the throne – though he was a well-respected peer, even among other dukes, during his lifetime", or whatever [just illustrating form; I am not looking up actual historical details]. There are people who would capitalise every case of "Duke" in that, and even "Peer", and that style is not helpful on WP.

The distinction is basically a form of words-as-words, or mention-versus-use, matter. It's the difference between "SMcCandlish does not have the Administrator bit, and has never run for Arbitrator, at the English Wikipedia" and "SMcCandlish is not among the English Wikipedia's administrators or arbitrators." And: "Trump's surprise election as President of the United States", versus "Trump is a controversial US president". It's capitalized when the title/role itself is under discussion (and is one that is apt to be treated as a proper name), not when it's being used as a descriptor or classifier.

On the proper name matter: we need not capitalize titles even when used in front of names when it's something like "According to assistant manager Herman K. Essell, the assault occurred at 11:46 pm." – i.e., something most people aren't apt to think of as high office. This style is increasingly favored even in business and news (but not marketing) writing, e.g. "according to executive director Chris Ng", versus "according to Executive Director Chris Ng"; it's just plain easier to read when it's not all capitalized. The caps are mostly used for titles-discussed-as-such material: "Ng was promoted to Outreach and Advocacy Director (roughly equivalent to a vice-president of marketing), then later selected by the board as interim then permanent Executive Director (a role previously named President until Hidalgo's resignation)."

PS: One way to look at it is that if a particular string could be interpreted as a title-as-such or as descriptive, and the reader has no reason to care about the distinction, treat it as a description and lower-case it. We just

DGaF what, in these examples, the exact formal title in HR paperwork might really be for Essell or (in "according to executive director Chris Ng") for Ng; we care about the generally understood role. Various companies, especially in the computer and Internet industries, have silly invented job titles, like "UI Evangelist" and we shouldn't use them WP's voice at all, because they're confusing to readers and are an NPoV problem.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:02, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

The style in your example "...not the most respected duke of Wellington in history..." is taking the principle of minimal capitalisation too far, outside of common usage as shown by this ngram. A Duke of Wellington isn't like a king of France or a president of the United States. A peer's connection to the place name in his title is often very minimal; the town of Wellington, Somerset, shouldn't be given undue prominence in a sentence about Dukes of Wellington. Whereas "the third and seventh dukes" and "even among other dukes" both seem fine to me. Similarly, Prince William is in no real sense a duke of Cambridge but he is a Duke of Cambridge. Ham II (talk) 11:52, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

That appears to be preposition confusion, between of and from. "Of" is rarely used in the same sense as "from" in modern English, and almost never when confusion could result. Such titles do not presuppose (or imply) that the person bearing them is actually from (born in, resident of, etc.) the place in question. This is most especially apparent in the UK (also the locus of almost all disputation about such titles), where some titles not only go back many centuries without residence, but were sometimes intentionally reserved for non-residents (e.g., "Prince of Wales", the history or at least legend about which is one of outright trickery of the local population into accepting a foreigner). In short, I don't think anyone is ever going to misinterpret the example "not the most respected duke of Wellington in history", especially in a construction that is entirely about dukes of Wellington, not about Wellington the place, as meaning anything approaching "dukes who happen to have come from Wellington".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:02, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

"correct formal title??!"

I know I'm opening up a hornet's nest here, but of all the "clear as "mud-ness" of this guideline, arguably, the worst and most contentious is this phrase "correct formal title." Can't count the number of disagreements I've personally experienced over this.

It seems to me all 3 words are in play. A "correct title" is not necessarily formal. As in "French king." A formal title is not necessarily correct. As in "The United States President." And when discussing nobility titles, just how far do we need to go to satisfy all three words? Is the difference between "Queen of England" and "English Queen or queen" really all that relevant went the individual's actual "correct formal title" is: "Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith!" What the hell are we supposed to do with that? Even shortened, isn't the country now called the "United Kingdom" and not "England" - or "Great Britain" - making even "Queen of England" not the correct formal title anymore?

Also what about officeholders? As I've had to say many times, "Secretary of State" is actually not the correct formal title. It gives no country designation. Just as "Governor" gives no state designation. According to the rule, they are common nouns. So even though "U.S. Secretary of State" is more useful, isn't the correct formal title "Secretary of State of the United States of America." And if you omit "of America" isn't that no longer the correct formal title?

So is seems to me that some clarity and guidance on this particular issue is desperately needed. Otherwise, I fear we might as well just chuck the whole thing and adopt a "some proximity" rule. Which, effectively, is precisely what we have, de facto, right now. X4n6 (talk) 12:24, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps the phrase "correct formal title" refers to the practice of lower casing a low ranking title given informally (maintenance worker Joe Smith). If so, the example is poorly chosen. Both "King of France" and "French king" are pretty correct and formal by this standard. Great scott (talk) 23:33, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

A "formal" title would necessarily be "correct", so I would drop the latter word, which I suspect was inserted for emphasis, rather than because it was needed. Is "

Secretary of State" not the formal title of that office, as given in statute law or in other sources? It's capitalized throughout the text of its own article. Dhtwiki (talk

) 06:42, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

That's nothing to go by, as it would effectively make every article that deviated consistently from our style guidelines unable to be brought in line with them. Primergrey (talk) 22:55, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

• I don't see how it could be correct for 2 reasons: 1) As I mentioned above, it gives no designation regarding organization. Is it "Secretary of State" of the United States, or of any of the 50 U.S. states which also have that officeholder? 2) What do we do with contradictory guidance from official sources? While we do have "Secretary of State." by contrast, concurrently, we also have "secretary of the Navy." So now what? X4n6 (talk) 09:46, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Agreed with Dhtwiki that "correct formal" is redundant. Another issue here is that "correct" is basically meaningless (and is not synonymous with "official", "accepted", "common", etc.). We need to stop using "correct" with regard to style matters (I excised a few instances of it from MoS pages the other day). There is no Institute of English Language Authority that dictates rules of the language; the closest thing to "correct" from WP's perspective is what modern style guides, dictionaries, and linguistic works say about the usage of something. Moving on: Great_scott keeps equating "King of France" and "French king" but they're not the same thing; the latter is a description, the former is treated as a formal title (more precisely, it's an English translation of a compressed version of a formal title in French, that English-language RS use as if a formal title).

We shouldn't be capitalizing "things that some people may interpret as titles" unless:

• A. RS consistently treat it as a formal title, or a canonical shortening of one (e.g. Queen of the United Kingdom, or in a clear enough context even "the Queen", for a much longer complete title of Elizabeth II, and US President and United States President and, in clear context, President, for the full, formal President of the United States of America); and (not "or"):
• B. it is either:
  • B1. prepended to or surrounding the name (President Trump, King Louis XVI of France); or (not "and"):
  • B2. the title itself is under discussion ("The Duke of Norfolk title passed to ...").

This isn't rocket science. All we really have if the chaff is blown away is a conflict between people who recognize that WP (like Chicago Manual of Style, NHR/Oxford, Garner's, etc.) has a lowercase-unless-really-necessary-to-capitalize approach, and people who want to capitalize every occurrence of something no matter what the context, largely in imitation of British press style with regard to peerage and nobility titles. The answer to the conundrum is

WP:IAR reason to not do so in a particular case (i.e., in the rare situation that following the rule will demonstrably and objectively, not just maybe and subjectively, make the encyclopedia worse). The titles material could be rewritten to make the when-to-capitalize cases clearer.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:54, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm not yet entirely convinced that "correct" and "formal" are inherently synonymous. I'll give two style examples, followed by a title example: A Roman Catholic archbishop could be styled "His Excellency." That's formal for a bishop. However "His Grace" is correct for an archbishop. In the U.S., non-Anglophiles routinely refer to a British monarch as "His/Her Royal Highness," or "His/Her Highness," which are formal for royal princes/princesses; but incorrect, as the correct style is "His/Her Majesty" for a king/queen.

You seem to be replying to me, and I said myself that they're not synonymous, so it's unclear to me what your point is. Especially with insertion of material about whether Americans know the difference between "Her [Royal] Highness" and "Her Majesty", which is just a non sequitur in this discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:26, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Again, is "President of the United States," while formal, correct? I would argue no, as the formal name of the country is the "United States of America" - so the only correct, formal title would be "President of the United States of America."

Beyond that, I do agree that a style guide ignored is a sad thing, indeed. And I support this one. But, as has been said more than once on this page, WP is unlikely to ever elevate its guide to the level of policy. So we can take whatever wonkish, pro-MOS view we'd like. But if that which we wonk over lacks teeth, then the entire enterprise seems effectively neutered - or at least, academic. X4n6 (talk) 10:21, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

But what about inconsistency in the area of "53rd Governor of New York" & "54th governor of New York"? GoodDay (talk) 10:44, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Well... one option is to let go and accept the inconsistency. Blueboar (talk) 10:51, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Agreed and amen. I'm especially done with that particular broken record. Likely, because NO policy or guideline re: consistency from article to article has EVER been presented. Seems an illusory goal at best on a project of this scope. Because of that, WP is likely an

OCD nightmare. X4n6 (talk

) 11:22, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Having glaring inconsistencies between articles looks unprofessional. No guideline or policy is necessary to understand this. Having a professional-looking encyclopedia is a stated aim of Wikipedia. Therefore... Primergrey (talk) 12:45, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Meh... Having inconsistencies within an article certainly looks unprofessional... having inconsistencies between articles goes mostly unnoticed (unless you are explicitly looking for those inconsistencies). Blueboar (talk) 13:01, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Claiming no guideline or policy is necessary, strikes me as just a lazy way of admitting no guideline or policy exists. Especially, on this project - where there is a guideline, policy or essay on virtually everything. But more importantly, this is a volunteer project: engaging users of wildly varying skillsets and journalistic acumen; involving literally thousands of registered users; and millions of unregistered ones; spanning over 5.4 million articles. So first, explain how to achieve consistency, under those conditions, before saying how important that is. Then explain, if it's so important, why there are no policies or guidelines addressing it. X4n6 (talk) 13:14, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

"'No guideline or policy is necessary to understand this". Misquoting people strikes me as a lazy way of making your argument. Primergrey (talk) 13:42, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Is "understanding this" vs. "is necessary" really a misquote - especially when no quotations were used? No, it's a paraphrase. But isn't your complaining about it just another "lazy way" of deflecting from the fact that you still provided no answers for either of my legitimate questions? So let's not fall any further down the rabbit hole and stay on topic. See Blueboar below. X4n6 (talk) 20:33, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

No question was asked of me, and to imagine that anyone posting here needs to answer anything is beyond presumptuous. Primergrey (talk) 00:38, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

"First explain...", "then explain..." But you're absolutely correct that you don't "needs to answer anything." But failing to engage collaboratively makes it very easy to dismiss your comments as unconstructive. As does your pointlessly argumentative attitude. X4n6 (talk) 03:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

There's another factor here... we need to ask whether consistency is possible. Given that we here at MOS can not agree on whether to capitalize (45th Governor of New York) or use lowercase (45th governor of New York)... we can not expect other editors (those out there, writing articles) to agree either. We have to accept that our community is divided on the issue. We can, however, ask that they (at least) be consistent within any one article, and not to edit war about it. Blueboar (talk) 13:37, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

So stop trying... just let it go. Don't let yourself be dragged into a style war over it. Blueboar (talk) 15:49, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Agreed! Thanks, Blueboar. X4n6 (talk) 03:31, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

It's generic if plural. So "g". Tony (talk)

but It's not generic... its sequential . You only have one at a time. (And only one 46th or whatever... so ...) . Blueboar (talk) 11:25, 17 September 2017 (UTC).

It's still generic, i.e. a common-noun phrase. It doesn't magically change into a proper name just because you're talking about two back-to-back rather than in a different order. It's still a plurality context. There is only one Governor of New York, as a conceptual entity, a public office; but there have been many governors of New York.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:26, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Re: "WP is unlikely to ever elevate its guide to the level of policy. So ... that which we wonk over lacks teeth" – Even those who have worked the most on MoS would not support and effort to brand it a policy. It isn't policy material. The difference between policies and guidelines on WP is that the former are required, core necessities for the project to be functional and to produce an encyclopedia, while the latter are best practices that make going about that goal more smooth and practical. You'll see this difference clearly if you read a bunch of policies and then read a bunch of a guidelines. The only parts of MoS that the community has ever felt rise to policy level are already policy (in

• Comment after the last discussion, I think a discussion at
  π, ν
  ) 03:51, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

  There wouldn't be any difference. Leads are not written in a different variety of English from the rest of the article, so the same style would apply. What we have here is a lack of consensus to change the extant rules (though we probably have one to improve the clarity of the wording, along the lines of what Tony1 wrote in his essay). Yes, there are some editors who wished that a completely different rule applied, or that no rule did, but this is true of every single style matter, and every guideline and policy matter actually; it doesn't invalidate the rules we do have (per second sentence at WP:Consensus).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:19, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Another edge case: "the former Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA, Victor Marchetti", which I just ran across. There's likely to be a strong desire among many editors to capitalize that lengthy job title despite it not being attached to a name directly (which would be "former CIA Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director Victor Marchetti", which itself is awkward, and can be misread to imply that Marchetti is the deputy director and we have not named the executive assistant to the DD yet). People are apt to miss the distinction between the versions with and without the comma. An argument can't really be made that the title itself/position itself, as such, is under discussion here (as it is in "The role of Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director is ..."). The clumsiness of both constructions can be fixed with rearrangement: "Victor Marchetti, a former executive assistant to the deputy director of the CIA"; that's the style we want and which other mainstream style guides want, so how to we ensure we get it?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:31, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

I think the express title sentence would be "When he was in the CIA, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director Marchetti...". But I agree it's clumsy; however, if you do use it, capitalize. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

But the "express" (maximally concise) intent is the very cause of the awkwardness; that version is still apt to be misread. If we stop aiming for concision over clarity and do the opposite, we end up with more readable wording and no urge to overcapitalize: "Marchetti, a former executive assistant to the deputy director of the CIA, [did whatever]."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  00:49, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

An analogy that might help clarify things

• This may (or may not) help ... but it is worth a try. Let's explore the capitalization for the term/name "union station". Now, according to our article on union station this term/name started off as a descriptive term, referring to any train station served by multiple rail companies... a station that united these rail lines. I think that we would all agree that in this context the term is generic and should not be capitalized.

However, the term soon began to be used as the name for specific union stations... we have a "Union Station" in Los Angeles, a "Union Station" in Chicago, etc. These are names for specific stations and so I hope we would agree that when referring to one of these stations we should capitalize.

So far this seems easy. So let's throw in a complication... how should we capitalize when using the term/name in the plural? Consider the following sentences:

1. "Of all the union stations in America, the one in Chicago is the largest."
2. "Of all the Union Stations in America, the one in Chicago is the largest."

The capitalization here is important to understanding what is being talked about... in the first sentence we are using "union stations" in the descriptive (generic) sense. In the second sentence we are using "Union Station" as a name (specific to stations named "Union Station", even though plural).

Now, lets explore the ordinal question... suppose an individual city tears down and rebuilds its station named "Union Station"... we can talk about the 1st Union Station and the 2nd Union Station... in this case the name "Union Station" does not become generic just because we are referring to more than one building. We shouldn't lower case just because we added an ordinal... In fact, lower casing would change the meaning.

So... can we apply a similar distinction to terms/titles like president/President, king/King, duke/Duke, etc? I think we can (and should). While president, king, duke etc can be used descriptively (ie generically)... these terms can also be used as a name (ie specifically)... and using it in the plural (or with ordinals) does not necessarily mean it becomes generic. Thoughts and comments? Blueboar (talk) 13:46, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't see the utility of this, since "Of all the Union Stations in America, the one in Chicago is the largest" isn't something WP would ever use. There would be no encyclopedic point at all in comparing the size of three things that just happen to share the same name or partly the same name; we even codify this "don't juxtapose for trivial reasons" principle at

WP:TRIVIALCAT

and other guidelines. We might, however, use "Of all the union stations in the United States, the one in Chicago is the largest", if the concept of union stations, in the original sense, were the context of the material. It would definitely be lower case in that construction.

What's really happening here is exactly the same linguistic process involved in some other discussions on this page. Take this sentence:

• "Smith worked at Harvard University, then at University of Minnesota, for a total of ten years, before taking a private-sector job with XYZ Corporation."

If one rewrote this material, one could come up with a construction about which people may disagree over capitalization:

• "Smith worked at Harvard University then at University of Minnesota. After ten years at these universities, he took a private-sector job with XYZ Corporation."
• "Smith worked at Harvard University then at University of Minnesota. After ten years at these Universities, he took a private-sector job with XYZ Corporation."

Modern style guides virtually unanimously agree on the former, though between one and three generations ago, the second style was fairly common and sometimes prescribed by the very guides that now prescribe against it. MoS has settled on the lower-case version because it's what the real world is doing, in the aggregate, regardless of the topic. That a handful of "tradition"-related topics are a bit more resistant to the shift than others is to be expected, and we really have no reason to care. It would be a total

WP:CREEP exercise to try to maintain separate micro-rules on a topical basis. As another example, it's also the exact same thing as "I went to Central Park. While I was in the park, I ran into my friend Jennifer.", versus "... While in the Park, I ran into my friend Jennifer." The "Park" style is obsolete, mostly found among writers at least verging on elderly. Some have suggested that the over-capping style remains more common among the British, but I've yet to see any evidence of that. What I do see is that it has retained a vestige of currency only in business writing, especially in internal contexts like memoranda within the same organization (e.g. "There will be a Staff Meeting at 1:30 pm, in the Conference Room."). This is yet another form of capitalization for "signification" emphasis, which WP doesn't do.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:49, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that Blueboar's example is the same as SMcCandlish's "univerity" example above, and this also has a bearing on what is meant by "generic" in Tony1's comment above that. It's tempting to say that all plural uses are generic and hence not capitalized, but this isn't correct. "Smiths" is a way of referring to "people with the name 'Smith'" and is generic in not referring to a specific entity. So far as I am aware no-one has suggested decapitalizing "Smiths" in this context. Semantically this is no different to using "Union Stations" to mean "stations with 'Union Station' in their name". Using proper names in the plural in this way seems somewhat informal to me, so I would avoid it in Wikipedia; if it was really necessary to refer to "Union Stations" in this sense then I'd write "stations [or places] with 'Union Station' in their name". Provided this exception is taken into account, it would seem correct to adopt as a 'rule' here that if a noun phrase is capitalized in the singular, then when that exact noun phrase is made plural, it is not capitalized.
The other 'rule' which SMcCandlish is discussing is that when an entity referred to by a capitalized noun phrase is subsequently referred to using only the head noun of that noun phrase and the head noun is grammatically common then it's not capitalized.
Unfortunately such 'rules' require an understanding of English grammar that is clearly beyond that of many Wikipedia editors. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:30, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

The surname case is distinguishable. If I say "I know many McCandlishes besides me" this could never be rendered with "mccandlishes" because there's no such word. Even in a case like "I know many Smiths" it could not be rendered "smiths" because the word "smith" (metalworker) has no modern connection to the surname; they cannot refer to the same thing. In the case of "I have known several mayors of Boston and princes of various royal families" we already know that in fact the lower-case version is well-attested in this exact context and type of construction, even if some people would prefer to write "Mayors of Boston and Princes". They're the same people who would write "When I was at Boston U. and later Harvard, I loved to read in Boston Public Garden. The Garden was my respite from the Universities even when my readings were for classes." The fact that supposed "rules" to sometimes capitalize things like "Garden" and "University" (and "Mayor" and "Prince"), depending on the exact nature of the constructions, are too fiddly for most writers to understand or remember is why they've largely been abandoned, and why WP should avoid them as

WP:Instruction creep.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:49, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

This still misses the point of Blueboar's example. There's no semantic distinction between "mayors of Boston" and "Mayors of Boston"; both refer to a set of people with the title "Mayor of Boston". It's just a choice of how to capitalize, and I accept that the modern style to be followed here is not to capitalize. There is a semantic distinction between "union stations" where the meaning is "a set of stations where tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies" as per the definition at Union station, and "Union Stations" where the meaning is "stations with 'Union Station' in their name". European union stations are not Union Stations in the latter sense; many American union stations are. Let me reiterate that I am not arguing for capitalizing "Union Stations" in Wikipedia; I accept (reluctantly) that we should avoid this style because making such semantic distinctions via capitalization is now out of fashion and so not likely to be understood by many readers and editors. If it's necessary to refer to "Union Stations" then we should paraphrase. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:10, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

But I am not sure we can paraphrase a non-generic plural such as "Dukes of Wellington"... or in "11th Earl of Blandings." These titles are more like "Union Station" than "union station"... in that they are names, not generic descriptions. Blueboar (talk) 11:13, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, paraphrasing is possible, but not necessarily nice. For example, "Dukes of Wellington" = "holders of the title 'Duke of Wellington'"; "11th Earl of Blandings" = "11th holder of the title 'Earl of Blandings'". Peter coxhead (talk) 12:04, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, since a case like "11th [e|E]arl of Blandings" is (or is hard to distinguish from) direct discussion of the title as such, in and of itself, rather than using the title in a generic, descriptive, plural way, maybe we could settle on "He became the 11th Earl of Blandings", "Several earls of Blandings died in battle", "She was the first female US Secretary of State", "The idea was opposed by three secretaries of state in a row", "When the President met the Queen in May", "Not every American president has met with the British queen or king of the era", and so on. That also means "He was the 12th Governor of Nevada" and "Only a few governors of Nevada were actually born in that state." Maybe that'll be simple enough to remember and not argue about, assuming it's palatable in the first place. There will remain at least a few people who want to capitalize every occurrence, and those who want to never capitalize unless attached to a name (or directly standing in for one).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:10, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

To my eyes using "duke of Wellington" looks rather old fashioned, and it is the style used in

I want to pick up on something that User:Great scott wrote "Obama is a 21st-century American president (generic), Three prime ministers shook President Obama's hand (generic prime ministers but "President" is a title)". I thought that the president of the USA was an office not a title. I have noticed the same thing creeping into British English over the last decade or so as British journalists have started to write "Prime Minister Theresa May" rather than "Theresa May, the Prime Minister" or "the Prime Minister, Theresa May".

Overall I agree with position that Blueboar had taken in this conversation. -- PBS (talk) 14:51, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

One can easily arrive at a different conclusion: it's the opposite of old-fashioned, and Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 was before its time, leading the way. This is supported by the clear shift in other publications: a few generations ago, most style manuals (and there were far fewer) were in favor of capital letters in these and many other constructions, while today they largely are not, unless the title is directly attached to an individual's name. The material you're quoting from Great_scott is actually Tony1's. And it's not WP's job to try to "enforce" an original-research position on a philosophical difference between a "title" and a "office". This is not a distinction that our editors or readers are going to maintain, especially if the sources most likely to hold out in trying to maintain it (namely, British journalism) are giving up. Its more important here to use one style for all these things consistently so editors know what to do, and don't argue about it at lengths like these again and again, year after year. If you want to get technical about it, "President" in the United States is in fact a title as well as a position/office. The proper address for a former US president remains "Mr. President", as if still in office, and (e.g.) "President Obama" if making a third-person introduction, as at a speaking engagement; if he were not present one would write or say "former President Obama" in most contexts, for clarity. It's an adaptation of the retention of military titles as forms of address for retired officers. I knew the elderly Gen. Doolittle when I was a child [friend of the family, long story], and he was always "General Doolittle", not "Mister Doolittle". In written form, it'd usually be "Gen. (ret.) Doolittle", or "retired General Doolittle" or "Gen. Doolittle (ret.)", etc., if someone had been writing about him in civilian life while he was still living.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:10, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

The example about presidents ignores the fact that, by law, former U.S. presidents are styled "President __" for life. The same applies to governors, senators, cabinet members, etc. One's most recent title is customarily used for the rest of your life. Hence "Governor Romney" and "Secretary Clinton." So, it seems to me that a discussion of the law v. a style guide isn't particularly useful. X4n6 (talk) 06:03, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

By law? By law? Are you joking? EEng 06:32, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, by law. It's called protocol. But you're

HOUNDING now? So when was your last block? X4n6 (talk

) 06:51, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I see nothing at that link about forms of address for former presidents, and nothing about any "law" on forms of address for anyone. It's normal when an editor has made problematic edits in one part of the project to see whether the behavior is being repeated elsewhere; in any event this page has been on my watchlist for years. EEng 07:04, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

The first sentence on the page: "The body of law, customs and practices governing diplomatic conduct is called protocol." Should be simple even for the most simple-minded. But I don't need to source talk page comments. But your post, as usual, wasn't constructive; and your presence was clearly hounding. You also haven't bothered to contribute to this thread at all. So you can use that specious defense at your newest ANI. Good luck. X4n6 (talk) 07:19, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

All you've shown is that there is some body of law that governs some part of "diplomatic conduct". The idea that this includes forms of address for former presidents, or indeed for anyone, is just something you made up. EEng 07:45, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Relevance? Zero. Unconstructive and distracting waste of folk's time here? I'll just let them speak for themselves. X4n6 (talk) 07:53, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Spoken. EEng 23:31, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

That's a form of personal address, and is not codified in any law at all. Even if it were, it would have nothing to do with how third-person encyclopedia material is written. (Failure to understand this same fact as it applies to British titles, which sometimes are matters of law, is exactly why this interminable discussion is still ongoing and why it keeps recurring.) The idea that former presidents should be styled "Mr. President" even has vehement opponents in the real world. Our own article

WP:NPOV problem of stating their viewpoint as fact in WP's own voice, and not citing any opposing sources, which are easily found in seconds). Post-scripts: The US Dept of State doesn't create laws. Someone expressing skepticism isn't WP:HOUNDING. Showing that an attempt at sourcing was insufficient is the opposite of "wasn't constructive"; it's something we necessarily do every day at Wikipedia.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:48, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

The GPO Style Manual thoroughly rebuts your claim. Also, commenting on another user's actions, especially in the manner you did, is counterproductive. There is a backstory you are unaware of. In future, it would be better if you inquire first, before leaping to assumptions. X4n6 (talk) 10:19, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

The GPO Manual of Style is in no way shape or form "law". It is a manual of style for federal publications in much the same way that

WP:MOS attempts to be for Wikipedia articles. That there is a legal basis for the GPO to promulgate a MOS does not grant that MOS force of law. older ≠ wiser

12:45, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

More to the point, this is further misrepresentation of sources. The GPO Style Manual explicitly gives the GPO-preferred style for former presidents as ex-President Surname, with the specific example "ex-President Bush". It does not contain the strings "Mr. President" or "Mister President" anywhere in it. I don't think this discussion needs any further

patent nonsense injected into it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:59, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

MOS:CAPS can be somewhat problematic. It defers, in the first instance, to usage in sources to determine if something should be capitalised. To some extent, this tends to impose, rather than negate "specialist style fallacy". My preference would be to defer to linguistic theory in the first instance. The biggest fallacy is the notion that a "discrete" entity referred to by a discrete "name" is ipso facto a proper name. Linguistic theory; however, requires that a name be assigned by a person (or entity) entitled to do so (eg, a parent or owner). It also allows that "the collective" and not some specialist group, can accept (over time) that a common name becomes a proper name. It is at this point that that sources might come into play. The trick is to disentangle specialist style fallacy from linguistic theory and balance this against "general usage". To this end, MOS:CAPS should provide clear guidance that facilitates minimal disruption to WP. To this extent (this discussion and others similar) MOS:CAPS is failing. I am not saying that I agree with MOS:CAPS but this is how I analyse the issue within the constructs that are in place. Regards Cinderella157 (talk) 11:42, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I have a reply about as long as the original post, but I doubt anyone wants to wade through it other than Cinderella157:

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:08, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Whether my position is philosophical or linguistic, I believe it leans to being more linguistic. When debating "the universe" a couple of years ago, I came across a useful

MOS:CAPS

relied on linguistics as the primary test of a proper name and sources as the secondary. On this, we appear to disagree.

More to the point, the basic premise here is to deprecate capitals. Within this construct, there appears to be no reason to capitalise a job title (except for that part which might be associated with a place or the like). A proper name refers to a "unique entity". A job may be held by a "unique entity" but is the job title a "unique entity"? Only at the highest level of a structure, is there "any" degree of uniqueness. An "assistant secretary of state" is not a unique entity. Why should "secretary of state" be capitalised but not "assistant secretary of state". I reiterate the common fallacy that a noun phrase referring to unique entity is not ipso fact a proper name. The warning, Post hoc ergo propter hoc, comes to mind. The course seems fairly clear, except for the hammering at the door that demands some titles be capitalised: the Queen, the Pope and the President. These exceptions would need to be codified to limit any creep to be more inclusive. I think I have fairly clearly demonstrated (above) how this can be consistently applied. FWIIW Regards Cinderella157 (talk) 01:11, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Your position doesn't lean toward linguistic. You may be personally thinking in terms of language, but the conclusions you're coming to are firmly on the

use versus mention distinction).
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:16, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

A longer response than I expected to make but it makes the case that job titles are not proper names. In a nutshell: job titles are commonly written in title case as a form of distinction and to identify the words that make up the noun phrase. It is a case of the circular arguement fallacy - because we capitalise job titles, they are proper names; therefore, we must capitalise job titles. Job titles do not conform with the linguistic "properties" of a proper name in multiple ways. It is better to acknowledge an arbitrary decision to capitalise certain job titles than to labour under the false (and inconsistent) premise that job titles are proper names.

Regards Cinderella157 (talk) 11:01, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Strongly agree with the circularity assessment. And, yes, the article does need work; even part of what you quoted from it is flat-out wrong: "proper nouns are limited to single words only". This is obviously wrong because nouns are not limited to single words only; various compound nouns are spelled fully compounded, hyphenated, or as two words, depending on an arbitrary rule in the style guide of the publisher in question, and dictionaries list all three forms. I think whoever wrote that material was trying to draw a distinction between a) things that operate as unitary nouns (which includes some noun phrases) and b) things which are noun phrases consisting of a noun and a modifier, where then combination is not synergistic and doesn't convey a unique meaning when they're combined. And they failed. Then they confused their idiosyncratic notion of proper nouns as one category, in distinction to a second category, proper names, in linguistics, and this isn't a distinction a linguist would make, even given a definition of proper noun that was correct.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:46, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

A special case can be made for compound nouns (where it is largely a matter of how something is written), some linguists may not make the distinction, and some linguists (like me) may get a bit sloppy, particularly when the attention is on the meaning rather than, say, syntax or morphology, but linguists (e.g. the grammarians Huddleston and Pullum) do make a difference between proper nouns and proper names. See, for instance "The distinction between proper names and proper nouns",

ISBN 0-521-43146-8. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help

):

The central cases of proper names are expressions which have been conventionally adopted as the name of a particular entity. ...In their primary use, proper names normally refer to the particular entities that they name: in this use they have the syntactic status of NPs. For the most part, however, they can be nominals that are part of larger NPs: such nominals may be attributive modifiers or heads that are accompanied by dependents that are not part of the proper name itself. ... Proper nouns, by contrast are word-level units belonging to the category noun. Clinton and Zealand proper nouns, but New Zealand is not. America is a proper noun, but The United States of America is not – and nor are The United States or United and States on their own. ... many proper names have alternant versions , and one type of alternation is between a formal name with a common noun as its head and a less formal version with the common noun omitted: The Tate Gallery v The Tate."

Also see, for instance section 5.60,

ISBN 978-0-582-51734-9

.:

We may therefore draw a distinction between a PROPER NOUN, which is a single word, and a NAME, which may or may not consist of one word."

--Boson (talk) 21:02, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

I guess linguists are arguing about this more now than they were when I was in university. The blanket "one word" assertion is still obviously wrong (for any cases where "foo bar", "foo-bar", and/or "foobar" are all attested and accepted spellings of the same compound noun and it's a name), even if someone who should have remembered that got the blanket statement published. (This seems inadvertent on Quirk's part; H&P's "word-level units belonging to the category noun" obviously includes indivisible compound nouns while it excludes nouns with modifiers buzzing around). The case probably doesn't come up frequently since most compound nouns with variant compounding are common nouns; probably mostly in cases of transliteration into the Latin alphabet in a particular way, e.g. Lao Tzu vs. Laozi. At any rate, I was not suggesting that there's no distinction (syntactically) between "America" and "United States of America"; the latter is a proper noun phrase, the former just a proper noun, while both are proper names (and the former a nominal constituent of one when used in the latter). The utility of the distinctions seems to turn toward futility when abbreviation is introduced; in Quirk's and H&P's formulation, "Federal Bureau of Investigation" would not be a proper noun, while "FBI" apparently would. After some coffee and some mulling over, I think the distinction some linguists are making in one narrow analytic context between proper nouns/names in this sense isn't applicable to MoS concerns, because we're talking about a higher level of semantics, where any noun operates as a

MOS:DASH and it gives some people headaches.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:23, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

There's a one-author attempt to fuse various approaches, Theory and Typology of Proper Names by Willy van Langendonck (2007, De Gruyter), synthesizing everything from Early Modern philosophy approaches to at least 5 linguistic approaches, plus psychological ones, including neurolinguistic, up to around 2005. Substantial parts are previewable at the Google Books link. Thanks to Cinderella157 for the pointer. Some of it is secondary material (basically an extended

Proper name), but something in it might hint at ways to improve MOS:CAPS in the long run, and at very least the detailed review of prior work is a source goldmine for the articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:30, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

@User:SMcCandlish, I see that this circular fallacy also underscores the basic guidance given by MOS:CAPS in general. It leads to some of the other fallacies I have mentioned and what I have observed to be problematic in the application of MOS:CAPS as it is written. My solution would be to make the "properties" of proper names more explicit as well as the common fallacies - with usage as a secondary test. I also acknowledge that changing this part of the MOS is problematic. Perhaps a essay to support the MOS is a step in the right direction? You are also clearly more conversant with this than me. Regards Cinderella157 (talk) 00:06, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Would need more specifics on what problems you're seeing. A helpful general approach to this stuff these days is to abandon all hope of true/right/correct/perfect, and go with what's most useful, consistent, memorable, and stable, whenever there are well-attested differences in usage and "rules" (sometimes national, but as often along profession/register lines, like journalism, academia, business, government).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:23, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Ordinals

May we please have clarification on what to go with here. 1) Name was the 45th Governor of State or 2) Name was the 45th governor of State. GoodDay (talk) 02:02, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

• 2) Name was the 45th governor of State. IMHO Cinderella157 (talk) 02:08, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

  Disagree... adding an ordinal does not mean we change the capitalization... since we would capitalize "Donald Trump is the is the President of the United States" I think we would also capitalize "John Adams was the 2nd President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States". Same with "Governor of Massachusetts" and "15th Governor of Massachusetts". However... "The Governor of Massachusetts was the 3rd governor to leave the conference due to safety concerns". Blueboar (talk) 02:55, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

  If it were up to me I'd go with Cinderella157, but there's no consensus to go one way or another. This is one of those times where I'd be happy to flip a coin and have it be either way instead of the mishmash we have now. Inconsistency makes us look sloppy.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:00, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

  Agree that consistency is good, but it isn't always achievable. As I said above... what I think we can agree on is 1) "be consistent within an article", and 2) "don't get into style wars over it." Blueboar (talk) 03:13, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

  On this, I would also say: "John Smith is the governor of Massachusetts" but "Governor Smith arrived ...". On the otherhand, I acknowledge that Americans expect their presidents to be capitalised as much as the Brits expect it of the Queen and Catholics, the Pope. There is the fallacy that because a job title is commonly (often) capitalised it must therefore be a proper name yet job titles frequently have determiners (such as any or another) attached to them and are often pluralised - all of which indicates that job titles are not proper names. On the one hand, there is an "expectation" that senior job titles are capitalised and, as User:SMcCandlish points out, the issue is where to draw the line - Acting Trainee Temporary Assistant Junior Garbologist Third Class? Obviously, the smaller the set of exceptions is, the easier it is to manage. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:40, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

• 2. The current consensus is "the 45th governor of [State]"; this hasn't changed. It's a common noun in this construction, and reliable sources do not consistently treat the title as a proper name unto itself. The sprawling discussion above has presented some arguments (including from me) to potentially capitalize in this instance as one of various arbitrary compromise lines that could be drawn, but there's clearly no consensus to adopt it, and the majority of respondents are plainly against it.

  The point of disputation on this particular matter is the confusing third bullet at

  proper name (linguistics) and proper name (philosophy) approaches to defining "proper name". Even head-of-state titles like President of the United States and King of France are not treated consistently capitalized in reliable sources, except when used in front of an individual's name.

  The way to fix the third bullet is probably to replace the "proper name" wording (and it has also been objected to in other ways, like the weird "correct formal title" phrasing). I'll propose a revision below.
   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

   ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:52, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

I believe this proposal will be about the best compromise we can achieve any time soon, while the current wording is definitely confusing to a lot of editors and leading to recurrent dispute, while off-Wikipedia style guides do not give consistent advice on the matter, though they mostly lean in this direction, and the proposed solution should be stable for a long time.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:16, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Short comments

• A good attempt to explain a complex issue in simple terms. I disagree on some of the examples (especially the ordinal, which I believe should be capitalized), but I appreciate the attempt. Blueboar (talk) 20:37, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

  If you remove the ordinal it's still the same case as "preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article)"; and you can replace that ordinal modifier with another adjective, e.g. Nixon was the longest-nosed president of the United States., if that helps make it clearer.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:53, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I think you're correct that something like this is the best that can be hoped for at this time. Deor (talk) 20:49, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support this or similar effort to make a more clear rule for when to cap titles. I have no particular axe to grind on what the details are, so I support SMcCandlish's proposal until there's another alternative that seems to gain favor. Dicklyon (talk) 23:19, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support Certainly a good attempt unlikely to be bettered. Regards Cinderella157 (talk) 23:57, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support as an improvement of clarity. I would also like to nominate SMcCandlish as Right Honourable Chief Editor of
  MOS:CAPS. —BarrelProof (talk
  ) 00:34, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

  See the scene in LotR where Frodo offers the One Ring to Galadriel. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:04, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

  • I somewhat wonder about the definite article (as it seems to prescribe saying "The earl of Sandwich will be here shortly" and "Please let me introduce you to the king of France"). —BarrelProof (talk) 00:37, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Both moot and mute (I think) since such construction is unlikely here? Cinderella157 (talk) 01:03, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Not to sure it's unlikely. See the example included above as "Louis XVI was the king of France when the French Revolution began". I wonder whether lowercase should only apply after an indefinite article. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:08, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Please see reply above to Blueboar, and additional bit in the "Longer discussion" section. This whole proposal hinges on a compromise: that we're just treating modifiers as modifiers; if we make one hard-to-remember arbitrary exception, then every camp with its own preferred style will want other exceptions, and we're right back to the mess we're in now.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:13, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Re: the [e|E]arl of Sandwich example – Ah, this is why the entire section is quoted in the collapse box; that case is covered by a rule not being revised here: "When a title is used to refer to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name, e.g., the Queen, not the queen, referring to Elizabeth II".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

• Support - Long-overdue improvement, which will de-cap many occurrences that I have found grating but left alone because the guidance was so unclear. Whether it will bear further improvement remains to be seen; it may need to be dumbed down more if "lasting peace" is to be achieved. Plenty of editors don't read at SMcC's level, and sometimes I'm one of them. And there may be nuanced cases that aren't addressed and could be with little
  WP:CREEP. ―Mandruss ☎
  03:46, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Unlike the current guideline, this proposal gives the reader a straightforward answer the question, "Does Wikipedia upper case job titles?" On the downside, I don't think either of the examples are properly capitalized. They tell us that a particular person was president or king, in which case the title should be lower cased. A better example of a "title or position in and of itself" would be "the French monarchs used the title "King of France and Navarre" from 1620 to 1792." IMO, this section can be omitted. I don't think it is necessary for the guideline to delve this deeply into the nuances. Great scott (talk) 15:38, 23 September 2017 (UTC) CHECKUSER BLOCKED AS A SOCKPUPPET ACCOUNT.[2] Alsee (talk) 08:01, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Replied in "Longer discussion" section.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:23, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Disregard above: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kauffner In ictu oculi (talk) 22:57, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Summoned by bot. Thanks for injecting some clarity with your well reasoned and clear explanantion SMcCandlish ☺. BTW I disagree with your assertion that Nixon was the longest-nosed president of the United States.. Have you seen the schnozz on William Henry Harrison? Jschnur (talk) 22:04, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

  No, I was still in diapers when he was president.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  22:17, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

• Support clearly an improvement.
  π, ν
  ) 19:04, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support, makes sense to me. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:07, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support: it certainly cannot hurt to provide more specific examples –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 22:49, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
• Comment: I'd prefer capitalization, personally. However, if non-capitalization has a better chance of getting consistency across bio articles? then so be it. GoodDay (talk) 02:43, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Longer discussion

A note from the "drafter" (more like assembler) of the proposed version: I'm not trying to capture the Truth or what's Correct – sources radically conflict on such notions, which are prescriptivist PoV anyway – just to distill it to a "rule" that is simple, cohesive (self-consistent), also consistent with our general approach to capital letters, and which is what at least some of the sources are doing. @Blueboar: On the ordinal case, I can't think of a reason that ordinals would be a special exception among modifiers, once the "ah ha" moment comes that this can be put in modifier terms and a cloud is suddenly lifted. I also didn't originate or inject the view that "the king of France shouldn't be capped", but it's advanced so often I gave up resisting it, especially as it's consistent with other "genericization", like use of an indefinite article, and pluralizing. It's also a concession that can be made to the philosophy set without getting the linguistics set to scream and throw rocks, and without dumping the linguistic approach to proper names entirely in favor of the philosophical one, which people without degrees in philosophy generally don't understand. >;-) In this, I've been dusting off my old lobbyist and policy analyst hat, and gritting the teeth for real compromise in hopes of "a lasting peace".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:52, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

• Still have objections... but I do recognize when I am out voted. I predict that there will be a lot of opposition once we try to implement this. And, while it may reflect the consensus here at MOSCAPS... I seriously doubt that it reflects community wide consensus. I guess time will tell. Blueboar (talk) 22:46, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Definitely possible. I "advertised" this at
    WP:VPPOL for this reason, to get broad input now rather than later. Anything like this will always have opponents. Hell, ever single item in MoS has opponents, and probably same goes for all the rules in other guidelines and policies. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢
     ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:23, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

So the article “the” is controlling capitalization here? I interpreted the proposal as suggesting that “US president” and “king of France” should be lower cased while “President of the United States” and “King of France and Navarre” get upper cased. If you can substitute "president" for "president of the United States" with no change in meaning, the capitalization should be the same. Great scott (talk) 04:21, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

And it would be; "Donald Trump is somehow the president of the United States, and this still feels surreal every day."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:48, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

When office or title is used as a substitute for a person, it often as a matter of style rather than necessity, and comes back to what you and I have discussed in another place:

elliptical main clauses. The use of "the President" or "the president" is a matter of context where "the President" in a paragraph that has already mentioned a man who hold the office is probably a substitute e.g. "President Macron" while "the president" is probably a substitute for any or all holds of the office "the French president". If the paragraph had previously mentioned President Trump then "the President" or "the president" will probably not be read to imply "President Macron" or "the French president". One can of course write in a very systematic way and always use "President Macron" throughout, but that is likely to be considered poor style (boring). I find this to be a common problem on Wikipedia because of the nature of the project with two clause sentences and pronouns. "Prince Rupert crossed the bridge and then went into the town". Another editors adds "he", "Prince Rupert crossed the bridge and then he went into the town", a third editor adds a companion "Prince Rupert and his brother, Maurice, crossed the bridge and then he went into the town". -- PBS (talk

) 09:29, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

That's already addressed by the "When a title is used to refer to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name, e.g., the Queen, not the queen, referring to Elizabeth II" clause, in the material in this section not being proposed for revision.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:12, 14 October 2017 (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.