4 ms·

Off Topic: another example of egregious capitalization! Is "Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger" easier on the eyes? Or should proper

Off Topic: another example of egregious capitalization! Is "Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger" easier on the eyes? Or should proper nouns be wrapped in quotes when part of a headline?

the8472 8y ago
It's called titlecase and common in many publications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Headings_and_publication_titles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Headings_and_publi...
pvg 8y ago
It's typical in English titles and codified as standard in widely-adopted style guides used by publications.
okl 8y ago
The headline is correctly capitalized according to common rules. There are websites where you can try different title capitalization styles, for example here: https://capitalizemytitle.com/ https://capitalizemytitle.com/
sdinsn 8y ago
Is English not your first language? Titles are supposed to be capitalized
- ClassyJacket 8y ago
  This is a headline, not a proper noun. Regardless of 'supposed to', it shouldn't be capitalized. There is no advantage to capitalizing, it, but it does lead to confusion.
  - sdinsn 8y ago
    > Regardless of 'supposed to', it shouldn't be capitalized That's not really how language rules work. I agree that it's confusing, but we have more confusing things in the English language that we aren't going to change either.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- neogodless 8y ago
  Canadian English is not my first language! "Meat", "Giant", "Maple" and "Leaf" can all be nouns, and some of them can be adjectives. With everything in that sentence being flexible words, and "maple leaf" not standing out, you can't parse that sentence in order. Canadian - I'm with you Meat - Ok, Canadian meat! Giant - I'm not sure here, is Giant a kind of Canadian meat? Maple - huh... ? Leaf - I'm really getting lost here It isn't until I get to the "Burger" that I'm starting to realize we're talking about a "meat giant" company and that company is named "Maple Leaf." I get that if you know all companies in all countries, you probably recognize Maple Leaf, but I had not heard of them before, so it took some logic to interpret a sentence that, in my opinion, should be understandable the first time you read it, without making assumptions (or having explicit knowledge about a specific company.) If only "Maple Leaf" was capitalized, it would've been instantly recognized as a company name, and the "meat giant" descriptor would've been logical.
  - sdinsn 8y ago
    I understand your confusion, but titles are capitalized in the English language so I don't know what to say. It's not the most confusing rule we have at least
edgarvaldes 8y ago
All the other answers point about the rules of the english language and the correctness of the title, but nobody talks about the issue in itself. I think the title IS confusing at first glance.
- pvg 8y ago
  The suggestion was that this is egregious overcapitalization and it just isn't.
dang 8y ago
On HN we don't have a rule about that, but we do try to make titles internally consistent. I've attempted to reduce your eye strain above.
- neogodless 8y ago
  Awesome! Part of me would want us to adhere to some kind of literary guideline, but mostly we want to communicate effectively. When a bunch of ordinary nouns appear in a row with the same capitalization, instinctually the interpretation is to assume all or none are part of a proper noun. For many, this would not be an issue, as we may recognize Apple, Giant (grocer chain), or even Maple Leaf. I am not familiar with Maple Leaf so I had to do some parsing and a process of elimination to decide which words were more significant.

the8472 8y ago

It's called titlecase and common in many publications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Headings_and_publication_titles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Headings_and_publi...

pvg 8y ago

It's typical in English titles and codified as standard in widely-adopted style guides used by publications.

okl 8y ago

The headline is correctly capitalized according to common rules. There are websites where you can try different title capitalization styles, for example here: https://capitalizemytitle.com/ https://capitalizemytitle.com/

sdinsn 8y ago

Is English not your first language? Titles are supposed to be capitalized

ClassyJacket 8y ago
This is a headline, not a proper noun. Regardless of 'supposed to', it shouldn't be capitalized. There is no advantage to capitalizing, it, but it does lead to confusion.
- sdinsn 8y ago
  > Regardless of 'supposed to', it shouldn't be capitalized That's not really how language rules work. I agree that it's confusing, but we have more confusing things in the English language that we aren't going to change either.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
neogodless 8y ago
Canadian English is not my first language! "Meat", "Giant", "Maple" and "Leaf" can all be nouns, and some of them can be adjectives. With everything in that sentence being flexible words, and "maple leaf" not standing out, you can't parse that sentence in order. Canadian - I'm with you Meat - Ok, Canadian meat! Giant - I'm not sure here, is Giant a kind of Canadian meat? Maple - huh... ? Leaf - I'm really getting lost here It isn't until I get to the "Burger" that I'm starting to realize we're talking about a "meat giant" company and that company is named "Maple Leaf." I get that if you know all companies in all countries, you probably recognize Maple Leaf, but I had not heard of them before, so it took some logic to interpret a sentence that, in my opinion, should be understandable the first time you read it, without making assumptions (or having explicit knowledge about a specific company.) If only "Maple Leaf" was capitalized, it would've been instantly recognized as a company name, and the "meat giant" descriptor would've been logical.
- sdinsn 8y ago
  I understand your confusion, but titles are capitalized in the English language so I don't know what to say. It's not the most confusing rule we have at least

edgarvaldes 8y ago

All the other answers point about the rules of the english language and the correctness of the title, but nobody talks about the issue in itself. I think the title IS confusing at first glance.

pvg 8y ago
The suggestion was that this is egregious overcapitalization and it just isn't.

dang 8y ago

On HN we don't have a rule about that, but we do try to make titles internally consistent. I've attempted to reduce your eye strain above.

neogodless 8y ago
Awesome! Part of me would want us to adhere to some kind of literary guideline, but mostly we want to communicate effectively. When a bunch of ordinary nouns appear in a row with the same capitalization, instinctually the interpretation is to assume all or none are part of a proper noun. For many, this would not be an issue, as we may recognize Apple, Giant (grocer chain), or even Maple Leaf. I am not familiar with Maple Leaf so I had to do some parsing and a process of elimination to decide which words were more significant.