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Comment by scrapcode | Hacker News Reader

> The official name is io.js, which should never be capitalized, especially not at the start of a sentence, unless it is being displayed in a location that is customarily all-caps (such as the title of man pages).

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The official name of Io.js in English is Io.js as it's a name, it is stylized as io.js. In Canada here, we have a company Telus, which stylizes it's name as TELUS. However, when discussing the company in non-marketing environments, such as Wikipedia, it's called Telus. The rules for English trump a creators stylization rules in many situations.

No, the official name for io.js is io.js, it is explicitly not Io.js. You can tell because this is what the owners of the project have clearly stated. Linguistic rules (which are rarely in fact rules), have nothing to do with it. If I tell you my name is "bob" and not "Bob" then I'm right because it's my name, you don't get to enforce your own preferences, just because of the language you speak.

But if you were to call yourself bob you should not be surprised when everyone mispells your name as Bob.

No, it shouldn't be surprising, but they are not correct, because bob is my name (it isn't).

If I started a sentence with your name though, I would capitalise the name.

Bob went to the shop. When he got there, bob bought an icecream.

That's not true at all. You shouldn't capitalize a brand name like iPhone, for example.

http://english.stackexchange.com/a/9065

It's a power game showing who's the boss. Submitting to rules about spelling shows obedience. You can't work on Sundays and you must spell our products with a small i. Do not take the Lord's name in vain.

So when you spell it with a big I because somebody else's rules say so, that proves you're the boss?

No, it proves you follow somebody else's rules.

Stack exchange as a source of fact? I very much could be wrong, but the implication that "because 30 people upvoted something, makes it true" is ridiculous.

At least in my communications department, we follow a style guide — like Bloomberg's — and capitalize for our own purposes, rather than to further the marketing of another company.

E.g., "iPad, iPod, iTunes. Follow the company style for capitalization in text: iPad, iPod, iTunes. In headlines, capitalize because the words are nouns: IPad, IPod, ITunes."

Winkler, Matthew (2011-10-14). The Bloomberg Way: A Guide for Reporters and Editors (p. 304). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

And: "When a name begins with a lowercase letter, capitalize the first letter in all references: EBay, not eBay; EasyJet, not easyJet."

Winkler, Matthew (2011-10-14). The Bloomberg Way: A Guide for Reporters and Editors (p. 271). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

As far as I can tell, The Bloomberg Way is the only major guide that encourages that, and Bloomberg's own editorial standards are inconsistent such that they only use it half of the time: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:bloomberg.com+iphone

A quick search on www.bloomberg.com shows inconsistent application of the style guide. iPhone is universally styled as "iPhone", while both EBay/eBay and iTunes/ITunes appeared in headlines.

The Observer (to take just one newspaper) disagrees with StackExchange. To quote from their style guide:

"In general, where companies have resorted to unusual typography for undoubtedly innovative and exciting reasons of branding and marketing, we will follow our style,not theirs."

Of course, in your newspaper, you are free to make up your own rules. If you strongly believe in the tenets of "You shouldn't" then English is probably not the right language for you.

I'm not sure which Observer you are referring to, but the well-known one with a famous style guide (http://www.theguardian.com/info/series/guardian-and-observer...), the Guardian / Observer, consistently use "iPhone"

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:theguardian.com+iphone

See the sections "capitals" and "company names" here http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-c

In particular:

"In general, we use the names that companies use themselves: c2c, Capgemini, easyJet, eBay, ebookers, iSoft Group, etc."

Ha, that's interesting. Yes, same Observer, but they've changed the style guide since I saved a copy. For reference, this is the full context I was referring to:

"Adidas:  use initial cap on this and any other firms that use the lower case for their initial letter. Keep caps that break up a one-word name (cf EastEnders) as in EasyJet.  In general, where companies have resorted to unusual typography for undoubtedly innovative and exciting reasons of branding and marketing, we will follow our style, not theirs."

When I was editing a consumer magazine, the - highly subjective - rule I followed was "initial cap unless it looks stupid, and don't capitalise articles". So EasyJet, C2C, but iPhone (fails "looks stupid" test) and the Times (definite article).

Bullshit. In a scientific setting, would you start your sentence as, "MRNA is the messenger RNA"? Somethings are purposefully stylized differently. mRNA, iPhone, io.js, etc. Naming conventions should be respected to aid clarity.

Science has multiple capitalization rules as well. mRNA is not a name, the same as genus and species are seldom capitalized. If you have a mRNA named Bob, then the name is capitalized.

HN auto-capitalizes story titles, because it presumes to know better than the submitter.

Can't have people just running around disregarding the rules. Think how disruptive that would be.

No Soup for You!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svSGKJFSl-8

I'd step carefully here, because you really don't want to accidentally mention semicolons...

This is wrong. There's stories in new at the moment that start with a lowercase letter, and this story has a lowercase word in the title.

There's apparently immense social pressure to capitalize titles, but it isn't enforced by HN.

It seems there is some kind of job that regularily changes titles to upper case. We had that happen on the io.js 1.0 thread.

I wouldn't capitalise it either, but do you refer to Yahoo! and NVIDIA consistently with their own branding guidelines?

Yahoo uses "Yahoo" outside of their logo. So, usually, yes.

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