- 6a. Die Homerische Frage, but Die griechischen Scholien. In many German books capitals are not used even for adjectives derived from personal names.
- 6b. Les Français, but le peuple français.
- 7. Société de l’Histoire de France.
- 8. Le Moyen Âge, la Révolution Française, Die französische Revolution. The French, however, now generally print le moyen âge, la révolution française. Capitals are to be avoided, because in the short sentences of which a catalogue consists they confuse rather than help the eye. For this reason it is better not to capitalize names in natural history whether English or Latin (bee, rana pipiens, liliaceæ, etc.). Several libraries following the lead of the Congress catalogue have discarded capitals for German nouns. Grimm’s authority is alleged in justification, but Grimm’s example is followed by a very small minority even of German scholars, and the titles so printed still have an awkward look to most readers. The Boston Public Library also goes to an extreme in its avoidance of capitals, not using them for such proper names as methodists, protestant episcopal church, royal society, etc.
The names of languages are not to be capitalized in the Romance languages, as “traduit de l’anglais,” “in francese.”
Titles of honor are not to be capitalized in the Romance languages, as comte, conte, marchese. But Monsieur, Madame, Signor, Don, Donna always begin with capitals.
Use capitals (or, better, small capitals) for numbers after the names of kings (Charles III. or Henry IV.) and for single-letter abbreviations (A. D., B. C., H. M. S., F. R. S. E., etc., or A. D., F. R. S. E., etc.). But n. p. no place, n. t. p. no title-page, may be in lower-case letters or small capitals, and b. born, d. died, ms. manuscript, should be in lower case.
I. PUNCTUATION, ETC.
207. Let each entry consist of four (or five) sentences:
| 1. the heading, | Cicero, Marcus Tullius. |
| 2. the title, including editors and translators, | Brutus de claris oratoribus; erkl. von O. Jahn. |
| 3. the edition, | 2e Aufl. {82} |
| 4. the imprint, as given by the book, | Berlin, 1856. |
| 5. the part of the imprint added by the cataloguer, | O. |
Which, if not the first title under Cicero, would read:
— Brutus de Claris oratoribus; erkl. von O. Jahn. 2e Aufl. Berlin, 1856. O.
Separate by a ; the title proper from the phrase relating to the editor, translator, etc. This requires a minimum of capitals. It will occasionally happen that the title can not be thrown into one sentence, but that should always be done when possible. It is usual to separate 4 and 5. The French, however, make one sentence of them (Paris, 1864, in–12). This has the advantage of agreeing with the best form of quoting a title (“see his Memoirs, London, 1874, O. in which,” etc.). It is useless for one who abridges titles to make any attempt to follow the punctuation. The spelling should be retained, but it is hardly worth while for Short or Medium to imitate the old printers in their indiscriminate use of i and j, u and v.