Capitalisation of compass points

[tobble]

When one writes down points of the compass, should they have a capital? Also, when writing compound points, should you hyphenate? i.e. North West or North-West or north west or north-west? It's for a technical report...

 

[ccscott49]

Capitals and no hyphens.
North West or NW or NNE or NNW or WNW

 

[shmoo]

No capitals unless part of a proper name such the the East Coast. So its the east bank of a river, or the wind turned north, but the North Wind shall blow, becuase it is the named North Wind, not just a wind from the north.

 

[shmoo]

Just found the ref. Chicago Manual of Style 13th ed page 7.37 but it is not a particularly US usage. Any recent style handbook will say much same thing.

 

[sarabande]

An uppercase initial letter is required if the point of the compass starts a sentence. e.g. South is the direction of the main channel.

If the P of C is used as a substantive (proper noun) it also requires initial capitalisation. e.g. You must head North from here.

When 2 PsofC are conjoined in apposition , e.g. South-West, and the sense continues to be that of a single proper noun, then both parts should start with a capital letter.

The use of a hyphen is a device to indicate the degree of intimacy between the two words. A "riding turn" indicates a turn that overides others, where "riding" is an adjective. A "walking-stick" is not a stick with legs on, but a stick used to aid the act of walking (two nouns, again in apposition). So "South-West" indicates that the PofC is halfway between S and W, and exists as an intercardinal point in its own right.

PsofC turned into adjectives do not require capitalisation; hence "She set a southerly course".

Regrettably, modern grammar tends towards simplification of orthography, so it is not unusual to omit the hyphen to achieve visual clarity. Whatever the choice, the rules should be applied consistently in the paper.

Fowler, H.W. and F.G (The King's English) are unhelpful in this matter.

 

[shmoo]

Download http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/House-style-2.pdf and search for north for the full skinny.

 

[sarabande]

That's so useful and a really valuable discovery. I shall use it to feed our technical authors.

Very many thanks /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[Vara]

Splendid, SWMBO pounced on that as a resource for her students. (She's given up trying to teach me English!).

 

[shmoo]

Wow! shmoos are not used to doing things right. More mischief is called for to redress the balance.

Before you get tech writers and students too worked up about publishing style manuals they need to realize they will be hard pressed to get MS Word to distinguish between an en rule, em rule and a hyphen still less leave their capitalization alone. Point them to LaTex, then they can write beautiful documents. Have a look here http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/#text

 

[john_morris_uk]

Interesting, except I was put off by the first contribution that read: [ QUOTE ]
my contribution is actually nothing special in the world of TeX. I've used the cd-cover class and the tiling macros from PSTricks to produce nice looking enclosure for my sample cd. The idea for the cover is based upon a title page by Imre Reiner.

[/ QUOTE ] No capital to start the sentence. Only one space between the sentences. Missing words (or mixed plurals/singulars) in a 'modern style' that successfully annoys me every time I read it...

 

[shmoo]

yeh, I know what you mean. But you are meant to look at the left column, where the examples are.

There are different styles for different situations you know...

 

[Twister_Ken]

Nice example in Blackwells about avoiding awkward word breaks at line endings:
the-
rapist.

My preferred one is:
arse-
nal.

 

[gandy]

[ QUOTE ]
Only one space between the sentences.

[/ QUOTE ] The consultant who drew up our style guide and document templates used to bawl us out for using two spaces. In his view that was a left-over from fixed pitch typewriters.

 

[shmoo]

[ QUOTE ]

Only one space between the sentences.


[/ QUOTE ]

In circles where this sort of thing is discussed it has the same sort of status as colregs and anchor discussions do here. So be very careful.

 

[gandy]

Tell me about it. The guy could actually hear when someone typed two spaces.

 

[john_morris_uk]

The trouble is that two spaces between words gets a bit ingrained. I was ticked off so many times as a junior for not putting two spaces in my typed work that I can't get out of the habit! I still think it looks neater and more presentable though.

 

[Twister_Ken]

One of the banes of life as an artworker is taking out all the double spaces that get put into body copy. On fixed typewrite fonts it made some sense, but with auto kerning nowadays it just makes the set text look ugly. One way of telling professionally written copy (me) is that it doesn't have double spaces in.

 

[shmoo]

Yup. Its an anchor [strike]argument[/strike] discussion. Don't say you wern't warned. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[john_morris_uk]

Hold on. I am just developing the latest spacing software. Its going to be called 'The Spacna' and it will automatically put exactly the right space btween your sentences so that they hold fast and never slip from your vision. Forget your old fashioned single or double spaces. If you really want to hold peoples attention in any conditions, buy my Spacna add on.

I am then off to text-cruise round the world whilst defending my program.

 

[Twister_Ken]

You can stuff your Spacna. I'm gonna stick to my old Monospace, which has held good since Caxton first set type in 1492.