This is something that's still confusing me in areas, and all of it has to do with prepositions. Single Words Multiple Words Two Words Three Words Preposition + (Article) + Noun + Preposition Looking at those, it means all those words would not be capitalized in a title, unless they were at the beginning or end of the title, which is essentially what this says. Regardless of length, non-prepositions should be capitalized in titles and prepositions should not be capitalized in titles, unless they're at the beginning or end of the title. However, looking at this, it says that any preposition with four or more letters, such as from, should still be capitalized in a title. So, anyway, I'm not only creating this for assistance on the subject, but also to have a discussion on the subject to get everyone's feedback and opinions. Discuss.
The English language is full of mixed standards. It looks to me like the "true rule" is the preposition rule, but since it looks odd with longer prepositions the practice of length checking came in. Really most people just wing it so the "less important" words are not capitalized. Or very commonly people will capitalize every word anyway. Other than in an English class it is very unlikely that someone is going to care, though notably I've never had an English teacher care either.
Now reading this, I'm even more confused. That says prepositions aren't always prepositions because of different functions. Edit: Reading this from Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips website, it looks like a lot of my confusion comes from the different style guides out there. Is there an absolute correct way? The Chicago Manual of Style would fit me, then, because I don't capitalize prepositions in a title unless they're at the beginning or end of the sentence, and that's how their guide is set up. However, they still say that prepositions, such as up, are sometimes capitalized depending on the function. For example, both of these examples from Grammar Girl's website are correct: Squiggly Looked Up a Word Squiggly Walked up the Mountain So, essentially, I'm still very confused. How do you figure out when it's a preposition or an adverb like Grammar Girl says? For those that don't want to read the following, there's an audio version available on the page I linked.
There's common English, business English, and scholarly English. When it comes to the really technical nitpicky stuff, it usually doesn't matter in common English. In more formal situations, however, some people care. I agree with Grammar Girl that as long as you maintain a consistant style throughout your writings, you should be good. It's really difficult to define the "right" way to do it simply due to the nature of the English language as a mutt language.
Now, how do you determine a preposition's function? In Grammar Girl's "up" examples, both titles were correct. Even though it's a preposition, one had it capitalized; one didn't.
It's really difficult to tell. When it's ambiguous like that, it's really up to the writer. Because there is no concrete rule to define it, most people arent going to sweat about it. Consistency is the most important thing here.
