Guess Case questions for dummies

MusicBrainz
,
1

Kia ora, some questions about Guess Case that I’ve always wondered but not had the inclination to ask. Feel free to add to it… I know I probably will :slight_smile:

  1. It often decapitalises certain terms, like ‘reprise’. In a release like this it can look quite inconsistent - should I be de-capitalising other elements in brackets as well (e.g. ‘Theme’ in the example)? Or is that just how it’s meant to be?
    Maybe someone has an explanation or a helpful link (couldn’t find anything) that explains what terms are affected and why.

  2. Why does it attack roman numerals? Is there a reason or is that simply a feature that hasn’t been requested/gotten around to yet? (e.g. II > Ii)

  3. I forget what the other one was… while I wait to remember, I’ll ask another question that is secretly a feature request - if we’re pretty much always meant to change ’ to ’ (the typographically correct one), can’t guess case do it? What cases do we not change it, apart from artist intent?

2

Have a look at the style guidelines regarding ETI (Extra Title Information). Relevant details are included below (emphasis mine):

Additional information on a release or track name that is not part of its main title, but intended to distinguish it from different releases or tracks with the same main title (such as version/remix names or live recording info), should be entered in parentheses after the main title.

Titles and subtitles of mixes/versions are formatted according to the appropriate language’s guidelines; the other parts of this extra information should be in lower case except for words that would normally be capitalised in the language.

If your language requires the use of title caps or other non-standard capitalization rules (e.g. English), you may need to distinguish the title part and the descriptive part of the extra title information (ETI). If the ETI contains no names or title, keep to lower case. If it contains a distinct title, use the title capitalization rules. In case the ETI is a combination of title and descriptive parts, use lower case for the descriptive part only. The latter often contains words like mix, remix, live, remaster, edit, etc.

In the example you mentioned “reprise” is the descriptive part and “Tiberias’” is the title. I think you could reasonably argue that “theme” is also a descriptive part and so should be lowercase.

You can look at the javascript code that implements the guess case functionality to see which words are automatically lowercased:

/*
 * Words which are turned to lowercase if in brackets, but
 * are *not* put in brackets if they're found at the end of the sentence.
 */
const preBracketSingleWordsList = [
  'acoustic',
  'airplay',
  'album',
  'alternate',
  'alternative',
  'ambient',
  'bonus',
  'chillout',
  'clean',
  'club',
  'composition',
  'cut',
  'dance',
  'dialogue',
  'dirty',
  'disc',
  'disco',
  'dub',
  'early',
  'extended',
  'feat',
  'featuring',
  'ft',
  'instrumental',
  'live',
  'long',
  'main',
  'megamix',
  'mix',
  'original',
  'piano',
  'radio',
  'rap',
  'rehearsal',
  'remixed',
  'remode',
  're‐mode',
  'rework',
  'reworked',
  'session',
  'short',
  'take',
  'takes',
  'techno',
  'trance',
  'version',
  'video',
  'vocal',
  'with',
  'without',
];

/*
 * Words which are turned to lowercase if in brackets, and
 * put in brackets if they're found at the end of the sentence.
 */
const lowerCaseBracketWordsList = [
  'a_cappella',
  'clubmix',
  'demo',
  'edit',
  'excerpt',
  'interlude',
  'intro',
  'karaoke',
  'maxi',
  'mono',
  'orchestral',
  'outro',
  'outtake',
  'outtakes',
  'quadraphonic',
  'reedit',
  'reinterpreted',
  'remake',
  'remix',
  'rmx',
  'reprise',
  'single',
  'skit',
  'stereo',
  'studio',
  'unplugged',
  'vs',
]
6 Likes
3

Thanks so much, very helpful!!

How I missed this I don’t know

4

To prevent this, select “Uppercase Roman numerals” under Guess Case Options.

4 Likes
5

The main problem with this checkbox is that it always interprets “mix” as 1009 and changes it to “MIX”, although it is unlikely that such a high roman numberal would be used as part of a title…

5 Likes
6

If I’m understanding this correctly (medley) is something I should also de-capitalise?

7

Yes, since it’s purely descriptive.

2 Likes
8

That is true - but specialcasing MIX only would be a bit weird. What I usually do is only select that checkbox if I’m dealing with classical music - otherwise, it’s very rare that I actually have a need for uppercasing Roman numerals anyway.

1 Like
9

Does that need a special case? Would it be possible to just apply the roman numeral rule before the normal case conversion?

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10

That does sound like it might work, but not sure how much of a change it’d be (guess case code is old and brittle and needs a good rewrite one day). I’ll try to remember to check :slight_smile:

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11

Regarding release title (and first track) - I went with the case guesser and treated ‘on’ as a regular preposition, however when I read the promo note on Bandcamp, I’m not sure anymore: https://charlottedewittemusic.bandcamp.com/album/rave-on-time-ep

What do you guys think? Is it meant to be a ‘Rave’ performed/taking place ‘on’ ‘Time’? Or more along the BC description, a ‘Rave’ that is ‘On Time’ (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on_time#Adjective)? :wink:

1 Like
12

Isn’t it Time to Rave On? :wink:

1 Like