Forum:CT:Italics within italic text

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The result of the debate was option 1. - Sikon 00:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone has decided to go around renaming X-Wing: Iron Fist to X-wing: Iron Fist. This looks ridiculous. But as I understand there was some contention about it, so I propose we take this to consensus track.

  • Option 1: Italic text within a larger block of italic text can be left normal when within the normal text, but not when used as book titles. For example: something like She looked up at the Leviathan in awe would be all right, but X-wing: Iron Fist would not.
  • Option 2: Italic text within a larger block of italic text should be left italicized no matter what. For example: something like She looked up at the Leviathan in awe would not be all right, and X-wing: Iron Fist would not be as well.
  • Option 3: Italic text within a larger block of italic text should be left italicized except for titles. For example: something like She looked up at the Leviathan in awe would not be all right, but X-wing: Iron Fist would be.
  • Option 4: Italic text within a larger block of italic text should not be left italicized including titles. For example: something like She looked up at the Leviathan in awe would be be all right, and X-wing: Iron Fist would be as well.

Voting

Option 1

  1. Kuralyov 02:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  2. Grand Admiral J. Nebulax (Imperial Holovision) Imperial Emblem 12:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  3. Darth Ceratis 19:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  4. JMAS 20:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  5. Craven 12:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  6. Treat it like regular text if it is not italized in the media title. -Fnlayson 15:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    Because that's the way it's treated in the actual titles. Havac 22:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    Jorrel Fraajic Wiki-shrinkable 00:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
    w/exceptions of the type noted by Fnlayson. —Silly Dan (talk) 02:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  7. MandofettWrist HoloprojectorJaingHead 21:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  8. Book titles, while sometimes containing ship names, are not italicized in their own titles. We shouldn't add or remove anything from titles that already exist. —Jaymach Ral'Tir (talk) 22:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
    • In that case, we shouldn't add any colons either, since they're not in the book print. But we do. And do you know why? It's good grammar. .... 21:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  9. Jaymach is right. Think about it: otherwise the title of the movie Titanic shouldn't be italicized at all! The colon topic is different; titles and subtitles have pretty consistent rules regardless of how they appear in/on the original work. Look at any magazine or scholarly journal article. Sionay 17:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Fine then, they should all be in capitals. .... 23:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  10. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Audience Chamber) 01:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  11. \\Captain Kwenn// — Ahoy! 22:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  12. Wildyoda 22:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  13. Because it's grammatically correct. Nobody, even official sources, is perfect. Azzt 13:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  14. Isn't that the way it's normally done everywhere else? KEJ 23:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  15. – Aidje talk 05:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  16. Sarendipity Talk File:Atrissig.jpg 22:26, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Option 2

  1. Sikon 12:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Option 3

Option 4

  1. Grammar comes fist.Herbsewell 03:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  2. Ditto. The other options appear to be just for aesthetics. —Xwing328(Talk) 03:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  3. What are we, voting on grammar now? This is like my proposal to start using four dot elipsi all over the place. .... 05:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  4. Ozzel 01:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Imitate treatment by official sources

  1. .... 05:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  2. Havac 06:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  3. This should have been easy enough. Just follow continuity! Jorrel Fraajic Wiki-shrinkable 12:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  4. Hear hear! Sionay 20:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  5. —Silly Dan (talk) 00:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  6. Stupid options added late :P So Destroy the Liquadator and X-Wing: Iron Fist —Xwing328(Talk) 04:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
  7. In my opinion, this seems the most professional option. Evir Daal 11:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  8. ATATatarismall.png 00:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments

  1. LOL, I just suggested Herbsewell bring this up for a vote. It looks like you beat him to it Kuralyov. —Xwing328(Talk) 03:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  2. I actually never planed to do it. I thought grammar comes before all, and that anything else would be unencyclopedic.--Herbsewell 03:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • "Grammar comes before all." WTF is this nonsense? It comes down to an option to follow a pedantic 'rule' that doesn't apply to book titles anyways, since it is customary for the entire title to be italicized, or making this encyclopedia not look like shit. Kuralyov 05:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Do we really know for sure whether or not the "de-italicize" rule applies to titles? I've been researching the subject, but I can't find an answer. My feeling is that italicization for titles should override any italics for ships. I can't recall ever seeing an italicized title with a ship name de-italicized. There's really no way to know for sure without word from an authoritative source, but my gut says that titles should italicized all the way, not because the other way has an appearance reminiscent of fecal matter, but because I've never seen another source format them that way. -- Ozzel 07:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
      • I'm not entirely sure. De-italicizing "italics within italics" is proper grammar, but I'm not sure things that would normally be italicized in titles ever actually are italicized in titles, thus they wouldn't need to be de-italicizaed (try saying all of that three times fast). Looking at Wikipedia, they're not exactly consistent - The Poseidon Adventure, H.M.S. Defiant, and Starship Titanic, but Sink the Bismarck!. jSarek 14:02, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Well those are probably mistakes.--Herbsewell 15:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • According to this site, Option 4 is grammatically correct and should be "always done in bibliographies and formal references." However, some people use Option 1 merely to prevent confusion. So, are dilemma appears to be this: Are we an informal site aimed solely at ease of use, or are we striving for a formal reference that might be slightly harder to read? —Xwing328(Talk) 17:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
    • How it's harder to read is beyond me. Can't people switch their eyes to read italics and non-italics in the same line?--Herbsewell 17:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
      • To answer jSarek's findings - I think that they are listed as such on Wikipedia because that is how the title appears in the film print. I could be wrong. But I suggest that we do not adhere to what is printed on the media, rather, what is proper grammar. If we adhered to the print, we'd have STAR WARS: X-WING: IRON FIST. .... 07:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Boy, this going up like a lead balloon. Let's face it, leisure for people's eyes is more important than sticking to the grammar of the English Language.--Herbsewell 23:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
          • Languages are always malleable; the extreme fringes that most people never need clarification on doubly so. jSarek 02:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
            • Ok, now, a couple of people are saying that we should not have it italicised in the title because it isn't in the print. So I say again: STAR WARS: X-WING: IRON FIST. As if we even needed another nail in the coffin of ameturism. This is just the crowning turd in the waterpipe. .... 06:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Here's something: The Star Wars Missions Books, from #4 onwards, have, internally, a list of all the prior books in the series. And guess what it has? "#4 Destroy the Liquidator". Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. .... 23:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
    • This is a lost cause...--Herbsewell 02:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
      • It's fucking ridiculous, that's what it is. .... 03:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Good way to get confirmed to the Inquisitorious, that. :p Havac 05:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
          • I don't care this is just bizzare and wrong. .... 07:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Call me optimistic, but I think we may have a solution everyone can agree on. Check this out: Note on typography for Voyage of the Dawn Treader ...and check out its talk page too (we'll likewise need a special note on the relevant Wookieepedia pages when/if this gets settled, so people don't keep changing it). Apparently the typographical convention is to de-italicize the ship name ONLY IF by doing so, you will not make it look like the ship name is part of the rest of the sentence and the book title is just Voyage of the. When that is a risk, you leave it all italicized--which seems to be what most people do most of the time to avoid confusion all around (and which is what Wikipedia did in this case), and before the prescriptivists here start slamming fists on tables, I should mention that the Powers That Be (reference book writers, the MLA) DO occasionally change rules based on usage -- see split infinitives; I'm not advocating totally ignoring rules, I'm just saying that even the folks who make the rules sometimes agree that some rules needn't always be followed. This particular issue is so obviously a sticky one that to label those who think it should be X-Wing: Iron Fist as amateurs is pretty insulting; any expert grammarian would agree that there's a lot to be said for the most common usage. And as far as the all-caps thing goes, that's an invalid argument because the title of the book is never supposed to be italicized on the book itself, just like the title of an article isn't in quotes on the article itself. (In fact, I constantly have to tell my students not to put their papers' titles in quotes or italics.) ...Also, it occurs to me (and yes, this is a reach, but hear me out) that Iron Fist, in the title, may not have been meant to refer to the ship necessarily; maybe the intent was to describe Zsinj, rather than namedrop his ship. Sort of like if somebody wrote a book about the Titanic and called it A Titanic Navigational Error -- you could very well leave that un-italicized. That may also have been the intent with Star Trek: Enterprise! Of course, this is speculation unless we know the author's intent. My *guess* is that Aaron Allston (or Bantam) intended all-italics, in the same fashion as the Wikipedia page above, which is why Iron Fist (as part of the title) is not separately italicized on the cover or on any printed reference I've seen. Ah, how I love a good meaty typography problem! Sionay 14:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I was going to say the same thing about Iron Fist, regardless of other titles with ship names in them. "Iron Fist" can indeed have multiple meanings; that's what makes it a great title. -- Ozzel 19:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Ok, what about Liquidator, which doesn't have a seperate meaning, and is de-italicised in print? .... 22:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
        • I know, in that case it makes sense. -- Ozzel 22:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The problem with the logic in option #4 is that Who is to say that the words "Iron Fist" in the title refer to the ship, and not the way Zsinj rules or some other reference or pun? "Iron Fist" isn't italicized on the cover of the book. I go with option #1 because of this example and for consistency. Wildyoda 22:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Because that was the ship that Zsinj used, and because that was the goal of the main characters, to destroy Iron Fist.--Herbsewell 02:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
      • That's a very literalist reading, one that isn't mandatory. jSarek 03:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The answer is simple: go by the way it is referred to in other official sources. If the official timelines treat it as X-Wing: Iron Fist, that's what we call it. If offical sources call it Destroy the Liquidator, that's what we call it. Havac 05:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
    • That's an excellent compromise, Havac. It seems it would work nicely... I could be wrong, though. Jorrel Fraajic Wiki-shrinkable 19:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
      • After reading all these arguments for/against, I agree Havac. —Xwing328(Talk) 04:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
        • So a reference book can't have a grammatical error?--Herbsewell 22:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
          • Let's be realistic here: all manuals of style will have rules which either put common practice over "proper" grammar, or technical points of grammar over the way people normally use the language. For most cases, we're probably better off just following the official sources. (When the official sources differ, and the matter can't be handled in the MoS by accepting a handful of exceptions, then we worry about "consistency" or "proper grammar.") —Silly Dan (talk) 22:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
            • Why don't we ask Leland Chee?--Herbsewell 23:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
              • He's the Star Wars canon guru, not a grammarian. If the question is "what do the official publications use for their titles?", we can figure that out by looking at the books ourselves. —Silly Dan (talk) 00:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
                • True. Okay...let's see a source.--Herbsewell 00:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
                  • Heh, this is going to get interesting . . . Can't find Liquidator, but the NEGTC uses just Iron Fist, without the X-wing, as the title for our other favorite example. jSarek 00:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
                    • Has a Option 1 been chosen or is this vote still in progress?--Herbsewell 11:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.