Out of style?

["ghart -at- netcom -dot- ca" <ghart -at- attcanada -dot- ca>]

Anonymous, writing under a new name, wonders about a few style quirks at
the new job:

<<In chapter titles, all words longer than three letters are set in initial
caps. This includes prepositions. Has anyone ever heard of this style
before?>>

This is a common style called "title case", and the goal is to capitalize
all major words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) and leave most function
words (prepositions, conjunctions, and a few other parts of speech) in
lower case. You can find full details in any good style guide; the Chicago
Manual of Style. will almost certainly explain the ins and outs of this
style. The problem with such a style is that some function words are long
enough that they just plain look strange without a capital. So someone
decided that this seeming inconsistency needed to be addressed by modifying
the guideline to permit capitalizing of longer words, irrespective of their
part of speech; some style guides recommend words longer than three letters
as the cutoff point. So the approach your writers are using is correct
according to this particular style. I don't particularly object to title
case, but prefer to capitalize only the first word in a title plus (of
course) any proper nouns. I prefer this approach because it's both visually
and grammatically consistent, but that's a matter of personal preference,
not right or wrong.

<<When introductory statements contain "the following" or "as follows," a
colon is used _only_ when "following" or "follows" are the last words.>>

This is a misapplication of a common style rule that has two variants, the
first based on grammar and the second based on common usage. Strictly
speaking, colons are used only at the end of a complete sentence or clause
(e.g., "For example, consider the following:" is complete, but not "For
example:"). However, there's a very common stylistic rule that extends the
use of colons to any list introduced by a phrase, complete or not. The
rationale is that since colons introduce lists, you should be able to use
them to introduce a list no matter what precedes (introduces) the list.
Thus, of your examples:

>Use the following format.
><information>

Is incorrect by both rules, assuming <information> is in fact a list.

>The format is as follows:
><information>

Is correct according to both styles. Again, details can be found in most
good style guides.


--Geoff Hart  @8^{)}    ghart -at- netcom -dot- ca

"Arthur C. Clarke had suggested that any sufficiently advanced technology
would be indistinguishable from magic--referring to a possible encounter
with an alien civilization--but if a science journalist had one
responsibility above all else, it was to keep Clarke's Law from applying to
human technology in human eyes."--Greg Egan, "Distress"



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