Why Do We Capitalize The First Letter Of Words In Our Thread Titles?

[picker]

@sandra_nz

Pendantic? Moi?

I think it’s pedantic

</metajoke>

[guizot]

@Marley23

I thought people picked it up unconsciously from newspaper headlines.

The convention for newspapers is to capitalize the first word in a title (and proper nouns). Though message boards are relatively new, the same convention is starting to set in. Whether it’s conscious or not, I can’t say, but the analogy makes sense. A thread title is to a message board as a news article is to a newspaper.

@Marley23

Although I was once told by a copy editor that most newspapers capitalize only the first word in their headlines. Doing It the Other Way, he told me, is considered pretentious.

I would say that almost all newspaper capitalize only the first word. I can’t recall ever seeing it done the other way.

[cochrane]

Eh, I only capitalize the first word and any proper names in my titles, as well as the titles of TV shows, songs, books, etc. I guess I follow newspaper case, then. I don’t really pay attention to how other Dopers capitalize their titles.