Forum:CT Archive/Italics within italic text

Forums &gt; Consensus track &gt; 

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.

Option 1

 * 1) Kuralyov 02:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Grand Admiral J. Nebulax (Imperial Holovision) [[Image:Imperial Emblem.png|20px]] 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)
 * 7) Because that's the way it's treated in the actual titles. Havac 22:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 00:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 02:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Mandofett Wrist Holoprojector[[Image:Mandskull.jpg|20px]] 21:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) 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. &mdash;Jaymach Ral'Tir (talk) 22:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) *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)
 * 5) 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)
 * 6) *Fine then, they should all be in capitals. .  .  .  .  23:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 7) Atarumaster88  [[Image:Jedi_Order.jpg|20px]] ( Audience Chamber ) 01:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Option 4

 * 1) Grammar comes fist.Herbsewell 03:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Ditto. The other options appear to be just for aesthetics. 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)

Comments

 * LOL, I just suggested Herbsewell bring this up for a vote. It looks like you beat him to it Kuralyov. 03:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) 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? 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)