Capitalization of longish (> 3 letters) English prepositions

I honestly still think that “with” should be lowercase as it is a preposition like the other two and three letter words (it just has the misfortune of having four letters so for some reason that makes people argue about that sentence in the english capitalisation style :​/)

same with “from” imho

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Prepositions and articles should be lowercase in titles except when they’re the first word or they’re an integral part of a common word phrase. (Naturally none come to mind right now but in the latter case you can usually tell because it seems weird not to capitalize it because you’d never say the words separately.) I also think they should be capitalized when they’re the last word of the title.

One place I always capitalize articles is in band names of the form “Joe Dude and The Other Guys.” Using “Joe Dude and the Other Guys” seems wrong to me.

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I also would prefer to have “from” and “with” (and maybe a few words more) in lower case. It looks better to me and many (physical) releases, with mixed case style, use these words in lower case.

For me the style guide of Wikipedia would be better:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles#Capital_letters

Not capitalized:

  • Prepositions containing four letters or fewer (as, in, of, on, to, for, from, into, like, over, with, upon, etc.) …

I don’t know why the MB rules are limited to “three letters”.

If I could vote, I’d vote for 4.

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Well, I can’t agree to this. For me it depends!
IMHO the most common style of the artist should be used, i.e. the style, he/she/they use (e.g. on their website). It might also depend on, if the band itself is also an independent band or if the band exists mainly in combination with the primary named artist.
Beside this: As “Artist as credited” the actual form of the release should always be used, if correct mixed case is used.

Or when it’s the last word. But as we all know, a preposition is not a good word to end a sentence with.

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We may know that, but artists producing song or album titles may not. :wink:

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I don’t agree, titles like « What We Are Looking For » do look pretty good to me, don’t they?

Actually, we do agree. Refer back to the first sentence of my post.

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It’s just a choice between two schools of style guidelines.

See: https://titlecaseconverter.com/

Here on MB we seem to follow Associated Press Stylebook (and NYT Manual of Style) instead of Chicago Manual of Style (or Modern Language Association Handbook).

All in all, it’s an arbitrary choice and I say let’s stick to what’s been set in stone here for years. I can’t see any serious reasoning behind one choice or the other and making such a huge change would wreak havoc on the almost two decades of stylistic integrity here.

I cast a definite ‘no’ vote.

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There are no British styles?

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In elementary school [early 1950’s], we were taught to never end a sentence with a preposition. I correct myself constantly. Currently, while helping my Grandchildren (3rd & 5th grade) with English homework, their teachers are telling them the same thing.

It doesn’t seem like any of the other replies picked up on this, but I just wanted to say that this was brilliant. :clap:

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Myriad!

However, a title is not a sentence. Or let’s say: It may be a sentence, but more often it is not.

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https://www.grammarcheck.net/capitalization-in-titles-101/

Shows that “from” “with” etc. also should not be capitalized. Not sure why guidelines all state caps on MB.

From and With are (now) capitalised on MB, aren’t they?

Except if it’s for artist credits or version info, of course.

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Exactly. I was wondering why, when all the Title Case guides I find online say they shouldn’t be, but MB want them to be.

I guess there is no unique widely accepted norm about how many letters minimum to be capitalised.

Your link says 5+ but we must have seen another reference who said 4+.

If we would use all caps, it would ease my life. :wink:
Or just sentence case, where you just need to know proper nouns.

For English, I rely on the guess case button.
For French, I’m wrongly guessing, most of the time, I’m confused.

From the style guide:

Exception A: if the title begins with a definite article (“le”, “la”, “l’” or “les”) and does not include a subject and predicate (i.e. the title is not a sentence with a noun and verb)

  1. the first noun is capitalized
  2. if an adjective is before the noun, both the first adjective and the first noun are capitalized
  3. if an adverb and an adjective are before the noun, the first adverb, the first adjective and the first noun are capitalized
  4. if the title begins with an adjective which is before a noun, the noun is also capitalized

Crystal clear. How can that be confusing? :face_with_monocle:

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:exploding_head::thinking: You are kidding, right? :rofl:

https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Style/Language/French

I would love sentence case.

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