Re: Title Case (Was: [OT] multilingual support in MS products

From: Mark Davis (mark.davis@jtcsv.com)
Date: Mon Apr 28 2003 - 17:10:42 EDT

  • Next message: Jim Allan: "Re: Title Case (Was: [OT] multilingual support in MS products"

    John is right; one mustn't read too much into the technical term "titlecasing".

    As to the other issue, the standard describes that where titlecasing is used, and what the
    boundaries for the segment that is to be titlecased, are language-dependent. Thus the default
    algorithm described in the standard would need to be tailored for the specific language. So in
    French, one could have, say, any of

    l'Apostrophe
    L'apostrophe
    L'Apostrophe

    depending on context.

    For more information, see chapter 3 and UAX #29.

    Märk Davis
    ________
    mark.davis@jtcsv.com
    IBM, MS 50-2/B11, 5600 Cottle Rd, SJ CA 95193
    (408) 256-3148
    fax: (408) 256-0799

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
    To: "Marco Cimarosti" <marco.cimarosti@essetre.it>
    Cc: "'Carl W. Brown'" <cbrown@xnetinc.com>; <unicode@unicode.org>
    Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 11:41
    Subject: Re: Title Case (Was: [OT] multilingual support in MS products

    > Marco Cimarosti scripsit:
    >
    > > BTW, I wonder whether it makes sense to apply the English-biased concept of
    > > "title-case" to languages other than English.
    >
    > The *name* may be English-specific, but as long as the three forms
    > "decadenza", "Decadenza", and "DECADENZA" are all possible in different
    > contexts, then the three operations are all required. The en-us rules
    > for titlecasing multi-word strings are *very* language-specific, and
    > not everyone agrees on which words are to be capitalized and which not,
    > but titlecasing a single word should be meaningful in any language that
    > has a cased script.
    >
    > Perhaps it should be called "sentence-casing".
    >
    > --
    > "And it was said that ever after, if any John Cowan
    > man looked in that Stone, unless he had a jcowan@reutershealth.com
    > great strength of will to turn it to other www.ccil.org/~cowan
    > purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering www.reutershealth.com
    > in flame." --"The Pyre of Denethor"
    >
    >



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