If for no other reason...
Sep. 12th, 2010 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpAs I have noted before (here and here, at least), one of my pet peeves has to do with capitalized glossary entries. Lots of people who compile glossaries capitalize the entries, under the (mistaken, in my view) assumption that... well,... I really don't know,... that it's grammatically "correct," or superior in terms of "style," or maybe that it just looks better, or more uniform.
My complaint with capitalizing entries is that (a) if you follow the glossary's capitalization scheme in your translation, the result is likely to look a bit overheavy with capitals ("Atmosphere Revitalization System Air Duct Fan B4 must be replaced with a Replacement Unit from the Spare Parts Kit"), and (b) if you sensibly don't follow the scheme, there will be times you'll never be sure when a term should be capitalized (is it "freon" or "Freon"?).
Today, in reviewing a glossary of French terminology, I ran across one more good reason not to capitalize entries.
Consider the French entry "Equinoxe d'automne" (as an example). As is often the case in French, accented vowels often lose their accent when capitalized, and thus, the question arises:
Is the uncapitalized word "equinoxe" or "équinoxe"?
Sure, this simple example might be grade school stuff for a native French-speaker, but Dieu! you'd think glossary writers would have some pity - just a smidgen of conscience - for unfortunate shmos like me who are on a lifelong learning curve and frankly, can use all the help they can get in such circumstances! (I mean, multiply the example several hundred times to cover the entries that start with "E", and you'll have an idea of what I mean.)
'nuf said! Down with glossary capitalization!
Cheers...
My complaint with capitalizing entries is that (a) if you follow the glossary's capitalization scheme in your translation, the result is likely to look a bit overheavy with capitals ("Atmosphere Revitalization System Air Duct Fan B4 must be replaced with a Replacement Unit from the Spare Parts Kit"), and (b) if you sensibly don't follow the scheme, there will be times you'll never be sure when a term should be capitalized (is it "freon" or "Freon"?).
Today, in reviewing a glossary of French terminology, I ran across one more good reason not to capitalize entries.
Consider the French entry "Equinoxe d'automne" (as an example). As is often the case in French, accented vowels often lose their accent when capitalized, and thus, the question arises:
Is the uncapitalized word "equinoxe" or "équinoxe"?
Sure, this simple example might be grade school stuff for a native French-speaker, but Dieu! you'd think glossary writers would have some pity - just a smidgen of conscience - for unfortunate shmos like me who are on a lifelong learning curve and frankly, can use all the help they can get in such circumstances! (I mean, multiply the example several hundred times to cover the entries that start with "E", and you'll have an idea of what I mean.)
'nuf said! Down with glossary capitalization!
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 06:37 pm (UTC)It was for this very reason that an earlier site of mine avoided capitalization at all...