Christine,
Thanks for your comment. I agree with most of what you said, except for
the style issue that John has also commented on (below). I actually
did not remember that Strunk & White had it defined, so, I was relying
just on the common sense: you don't need to revert/invert/turn you head
around or jump on one foot to match the order in the caption to that in
the photo.
Any style that says differently is impractical and inefficient.
In my work I've dealt with several different styles, primarily those that
technical journals use. The most prominent ones include American Institute
of Physics (AIP) style and IEEE style.
I tend to think that the initial idea of any of those styles is to provide
a (standard) tool for effective (and often efficient) communication.
The problem, however, is where some provisions and rules (often stale and
outdated, or sometimes purely historical, based on no practical
consideration) are inefficient or illogical, and the style Cerberus[es]
refuse to update those. [*]
2-3 years ago, I've head a discussion with the chief editor of one of the
IEEE journals on the style used in that journal. He actually agreed to the
fact that some provisions were not the most efficient. IIRC, he even
agreed to change some that were not dictated by the IEEE style, but said
he couldn't change those that are "inherited" from the umbrella IEEE
style.
==========
[*] One vivid example is the "illogical" quotation marks:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2011/05/the_rise_of_logical_punctuation.html
Cheers,
Igor
John Sun, 25 Feb 2018 10:36:11 -0800 wrote:
On 2/24/2018 11:26, Christine Aguila wrote:
Well, here goes:
How an entity (company or periodical) handles issues like photo
captions might be more of an issue of style rather than effective
communication. Style in this sense means how they handle photo
captions, spacing, names of sources, et al—think of the various style
manuals: APA, MLA, AP, Chicago Manual of Style, NYT Style etc.
I should still have my copy of "Strunk & White" from Freshman English
around here somewhere. Nineteen-Sixty-Five edition I think. Don't refer
to it much now, because it was drilled into me back then.
Captions for group photos are easy -
Top row: Name, Name, Name Top row: Name, Name, Name
Middle Row: Name, Name, Name *OR* Middle Row: Name, Name, Name
Front Row: Name, Name, Name Front Row: Name, Name, Name
... so the faces "line up" with the names in the caption (and vice versa).
If your kid is listed third in "Middle Row:", look for the third kid from
the left in the middle row.
Years from now if someone in the class becomes famous or notorious they'll
still be easy to find in their Third Grade class photo.
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