Yes and no... depends on your point of view I guess... In the first
example, "Plugin Manager" certainly is liable to be perceived as a
proper noun -- but then, it wouldn't _need_ to be interpreted that
way. It could just be a decription of a thing without being the
thing's name -- the thing may not have a name it may just be "that
thing you can get to by clicking here". :P Hence my reason for
providing the 2nd example, wherein "available inventory" is much less
likely to be perceived as a proper noun. If I say to someone "it will
be in the available inventory" in the conversation, I don't expect
them to interpret "available inventory" as a proper name. It certainly
_could_ be a proper name for a thing, but not only does it not need to
be the name for that thing, again that thing doesn't need to have a
name necessarily. But I'm still liable to capitalize the phrase to
emphasize that when I say "available inventory" I'm talking about a
specific page (which will later be named "Fred" to avoid a patent
lawsuit over having named it "Available Inventory"). But "available
inventory" is really more of a description.


> Don't these rules boil down to proper names vs regular
> nouns?

> Proper Names get init caps
> regular nouns don't (unless beginning a sentence)

unless you're e. e. cummings :)


> On 5/5/05, S. Isaac Dealey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I've avoided making this sort of distinction in my own
>> documentation,
>> largely because of the extra work involved... I do tend
>> to capitalize
>> certain vocabulary words -- particularly if they refer to
>> a specific
>> "tool" in an application, i.e. "Plugin Manager" rather
>> than "plugin
>> manager" or more to the point "Available Inventory". I.e.
>> "these units
>> will be displayed in Available Inventory" instead of
>> "these units will
>> be displayed in available inventory.". I'm probably not
>> very good
>> about this because I probably vassilate back and forth on
>> this issue a
>> lot due to being generally partial to an all-lowercase
>> style...
>> sort-of e. e. cummings-esque. :)

s. isaac dealey   954.522.6080
new epoch : isn't it time for a change?

add features without fixtures with
the onTap open source framework

http://www.fusiontap.com
http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/author/4806Dealey.htm




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