Title styling in genealogy

Particularly interested in how Private User sees the issue.

Randy Schoenberg disagrees, specifically about Emperor Napoleon, and cites:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/books/military-figures-biography-t...

https://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/587

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/glossary/napoleon-i-em...

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc...

I had cited on https://www.geni.com/discussions/216411?msg=1421143

Formal titles in AP style should be capitalized when they immediately precede one or more names. When a title stands alone or is offset from a name by commas, it should be lowercase. Aug 25, 2019

How To Use Formal Titles in AP Style | BKA Content

https://www.bkacontent.com/use-formal-titles-ap-style/

“We are not talking about "sentence case" but more properly "title case" when we are writing a display name.”

See the difference at https://capitalizemytitle.com/

https://capitalizemytitle.com/faqs/

Capitalize My Title is a dynamic title capitalization tool used to make sure your titles or headlines use proper capitalization rules according to various style guides include APA, AP, MLA, and Chicago. It also counts your words and checks for grammar issues.

https://capitalizemytitle.com/# Using AP tab, Title Case, result:

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French

we discussed at length before. im sticking with

Baldwin, count of Flanders

not

Baldwin, Count of Flanders

easy solve:
-apply the rules of writing for noble "titles".
-Do Not Apply The Rules For Writing Book Chapter "Titles".

When you all can explain why we should use *sentence case* in a display name, let me know. Looks very silly to me.

And btw, I think our roles are reversed when it comes to town names. Most of you like to use the old town names (I like using the new modern ones), but you like the new capitalization rules (really a misapplication of the new rules) and I like the old ones. Funny.

I find I can’t go wrong using records “at the time.”

Titles in English however do seem to have evolved stylistically. Burke’s was very fond of capitalizing everything.

Not sure I want to recognize the right of AP to Americanize the English peerage in defiance of all English practice and convention, especially as they don't understand it anyway.

Baron and Lord should always be capitalized when referring to a Parliamentary title, because the words have different meanings when written lower-case.

For instance, when Thomas Wentworth was created Lord Wentworth, a different Thomas Wentworth was lord of Wentworth.

Profiles can sometimes have more language added, use the different way of styles according to the specific language way of writing it.

Swedish is simalary in how many other european countries write in their language, accept from england, and germany who capitalizing everywhere in text according to old rules that no other today use. Swedish and french are very much alike in the way of writing, as an example: Swedish. Napoleon I, kejsare av Frankrike, would look much the same in french: Napoléon Ier, empereur de France, (premier empereur des Français), or; Napoléon Bonaparte, empereur des Français. It differs from english:
Napoleon 1st, Emperor of France.

The easy solution is to use the way of writing according to the language used.

“The easy solution is to use the way of writing according to the language used.”

So when someone is French / international, such as Napoleon l, in English tab is the name title translated or constructed?

Only constructed when it comes to how english capitalize the word emperor, but in German language it also change the word emperor to kaiser: Napoleon Bonaparte, Kaiser Napoleon I. In russia they use Cyrillic, Наполео́н I Бонапа́рт, император французов.
Then there are some alfabet that doesn't use lower case letters at all, like Hebrew alphabet.

This discussion is going to get very confusing for non-native speakers of English, because the term "title case" doesn't refer to the title of nobility, but to the title of a book or chapter. In my view, the "display name" should be in "title case" not because there is a title of nobility, but because it is akin to a chapter heading. I see no reason to use sentence case for display names on Geni. And so far no one has come up with any justification for that, other than a somewhat pedantic desire to use a rule that really doesn't apply to this usage.

Well, this somewhat pedantic desire has its ground in an aesthetic value that some of us values, the opposite of not understanding this, would be someone who writes the full displayed name in only capital letters, title included. Somewhere most user draw a line, but obvious not everyone. It might be futile to think that we all can agree where to draw this line, different languages without the same set of writings rules is hard to overlook just as individuals without any knowing of any rules at all.

Actually For The Third Time I Try To Explain It To You, It'S About Readability:
There Are Millions Of Complex Profiles On 3, 4 lines, If Thanks To The Correct Writing Rules We Can Better Identify The Title From The Toponym And Other Names, It Is A Blessing!

If You Want To Apply The Rules For The Book Chapters For The Dispay Names In The Tree, At The Time It Would Be Just As Correct To Write ALL CAPS WITH THE ACTIVE CAPSLOCK.. WHY NOT!?

The more similar rules we have and uses, the less extra time you'll spend on correcting all the thousands merged profiles afterward...; )

In North America, East Asia, I *think* Oceania, and some other places, historians follow the Chicago Manual of Style. The NEHGS actually recommends it over their own style guide.

Titles and offices are covered in 8.18-8.32 of the CMOS. Short version: CMOS would say "Elizabeth, queen of the United Kingdom," NOT "Elizabeth, Queen of the United Kingdom."

Personally? I truly don't care. :) CMOS looks more "official," while capitalizing the title looks more aesthetically pleasing to me. But there's the answer to your question about what at least one of "authorities" says.

I should add that I almost always capitalize on Geni MPs. Why? It just feels more natural to me. Same with my citation format -- I took Chicago and tweaked it in a way that's more accessible for users.

I don't think we need to police this much. As long as profiles are consistent within their areas, that works for me.

Ashley, if you drill down in the style manuals, you will see that CMOS's rule about not capitalizing titles does NOT apply to title case (there's the confusion again) but only to sentence case. That's the issue. Why use sentence case in a Display Name on Geni? Your (and my) aesthetic preference is correct on this one, also as a matter of the style rules.

incredibile having to discuss it for so long:
<< GENEAOLOGY IS NOT A BOOK OF CHAPTERS >>
PLZ don't write according to your questionable aesthetic taste, but apply international writing rules if you write English in the English field when the complex profile requires the multilingual.

>>> "apply international writing rules if you write English"

They don't exist, Livio. They don't even exist within England itself; several style guides compete for primacy there. This is the whole reason why websites usually develop in-house style guides...which I really hope we don't do!

>>> "if you drill down in the style manuals"

As someone who had to take two full courses specifically on the subject and read CMOS, APA, and MLA cover-to-cover (twice!), please don't make me or anyone else do that, ever. It's cruel and unusual. :)

I pulled CMOS 17 off the shelf earlier when I saw this thread. There *is* nuance, and I think you and I could make our case, especially if we consider a name to be an independent honorific. But my hope is that we won't even go down the road far enough to make it worth the effort. Choosing a style guide or, worse, developing our own is a fool's errand. Just stay consistent within tree branches and leave it alone.

Private User come on everyone has an official or unofficial one, when I looked for the Italian ones I immediately found the opinion of the highest prestigious academy. (We capitalize only, only, only when using the noble title or work referring to that person and therefore in place of the name)

Then looking for the English ones, all the guidelines of those who have raised the problem emerged converging in Capital before the name only for the noble titles, regarding the works, however lowercase.

So it seems to me that putting the noble titles in Capital letters even after the name and surname is more a practice of those who have never posed the problem, and who brings it back Capitalized because read in a chapter title, or for reventiality.

>> in fact after lines and lines of discussion here is totally missing a link to some authority that recommend to write it Upper case <<
(Apart from the guideline on how to write a "chapter titles" LOL :)

Now I think everyone is going to immediately change all the GENI profiles? NO!
But not even that after someone has just rearranged all correctly in a super multilingual vandalized node that no one has FIX back in 15 days while reported, have to see another one to change two letters and also in the wrong way ;P

In any case, I believe we all agree that the greatest galactic "open source" information diffusion effort never happened before, is by the Wikipedians.. and their guiding lines also completely align with all the others & aforesaid:

-Baldwin, count of Flanders
-Napoleon, emperor of the French
-Elizabeth, queen of the United Kingdom

{PLZ to say otherwise, list some decent authorities that suggest Capitalization after names}

Sorry, Livio Scremin where exactly did you find on Wikipedia any support for your position? I don't see it. There he is just called "Napoleon"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon

In fact, of the ten times that "Emperor of the French" appears on that page, nine capitalize the e in Emperor and just one (footnote 326) quotes an article that says "emperor of the french" for some reason. And besides, the issue is once again NOT what you would write in an ordinary sentence, but what should be used as a display name on Geni, which is something completely different, and in my view much more akin to a chapter heading.

As for Italian, I suppose that since 1066 the Latin countries have been trying to turn English into a Latin language, but at heart it is still Germanic, and of course in German, all nouns are capitalized. Just read the original of our Declaration of Independence to see why the rules might be quite different in English to what you are used to in Italy. https://reason.com/2020/07/04/what-the-declaration-of-independence-...

I more have the impression that Encyclopedias etc in English are evolving towards AP style for names / titles, to be honest. There seems no question that “earlier” English style was initial cap for succeeding title. Here’s Britannica 1911 as example:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Napoleon_I.

As a proposed compromise for Napoleon, let’s either

- just leave it off in English, or
- go with Emperor Napoleon

He’s European, after all.

>>> "come on everyone has an official or unofficial one, when I looked for the Italian ones I immediately found the opinion of the highest prestigious academy."

There is no authority on the English language. It doesn't have an academy the way many other European languages do. There are varying opinions on this issue, even within dialects.

The idea that there is an Anglophone standard is not real; let's move on from it.

>>> "/!\ Troll Alarm /!\"

If you cannot engage maturely and respectfully, you should not engage.

I vote that you all learn swedish, the best and most advanced language in the world, easy to use, simple to learn, direct and precise, all garbage inflections, case* etc, thrown away.
>>>engage maturely and respectfully...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case

Jag röstar för att ni alla lär er svenska, det bästa och mest avancerade språket i världen, enkelt att använda, simpelt att lära sig, direkt och precist, alla skräpböjningar, kasus, etc, bortkastade.
>>>engagera er moget och respektfullt...

The English think a style manual is a contradiction in terms - if you don't have style, you can't get it from a manual.

But I suppose we must abandon all hope of Americans understanding the difference between a peer and a squire. So they can all imagine that the immigrant John Batte "lord of Oakwell", a 100-acre farm, was one of the highest in the land.

Did you see all the “Sir Knights” I had cleaned up? It was Monty Python time. :)

We’re pretty good on peers of the kingdom these days, but lords of the manor with American descent are often genealogically promoted.