Capitalisation of "raison d'etre"
Yasuo Kozato
how to capitalise it.
"The Raison d'Etre of ..."
"The Raison D'etre of ..."
"The Raison D'Etre of ..."
Which is correct?
--
Yasuo Kozato koz...@canon.co.uk
Canon Research Centre Europe
Yasuo Kozato
Philippa Hogben
>I want to use "raison d'etre" as a part of a title, but am not sure
>how to capitalise it.
>
>"The Raison d'Etre of ..."
>"The Raison D'etre of ..."
>"The Raison D'Etre of ..."
>
I would use the first or, possibly, the third but definitely not the second.
The "d'" is actually short for "de" which is French for "of" (I am not sure if
that is an exact translation in this context) so I would treat it as the "in
between" words like "and" and "of" etc. I wouldn't normally capitalise these so
I would use the first version you have above. I wouldn't write:
"The Meaning Of life in....."
so I would avoid your second version.
The third version I am not sure about so I would probably avoid it. I might use
it if I were to capitalise the "of".
Hope this helps
Philippa
---
Philippa Hogben p...@eng.cam.ac.uk (Reverse if mailing from Janet)
Any mistakes are mine, all mnie.
I am not a .sig virus. I am a free bug.
Ivan A Derzhanski
>I want to use "raison d'etre" as a part of a title, but am not sure
>how to capitalise it.
>
>"The Raison d'Etre of ..."
>"The Raison D'etre of ..."
>"The Raison D'Etre of ..."
The first option ("Raison d'Etre") would be my choice. The "d'" is a
preposition, and as such shouldn't be capitalised. The infinitive
"\^{e}tre" should.
I'm in two minds as to the circumflex, though. Here's why. Since
"raison d'\^{e}tre" has a circumflex in French, it would continue
having it in English, at least in my writing. Now in French
capitalised vowels lose their accents, while in English there is no
such rule. So if it is first borrowed and then capitalised, it should
end up as "Raison d'\^{E}tre".
Other opinions from accent-sensitive people?
--
`If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski (i...@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; i...@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science, 2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Patrick Guimonet
>
>In article <1992Sep23.0...@canon.co.uk> koz...@canon.co.uk (Yasuo Kozato) writes:
>>I want to use "raison d'etre" as a part of a title, but am not sure
>>how to capitalise it.
>>
>>"The Raison d'Etre of ..."
>>"The Raison D'etre of ..."
>>"The Raison D'Etre of ..."
>
>The first option ("Raison d'Etre") would be my choice. The "d'" is a
>preposition, and as such shouldn't be capitalised. The infinitive
>"\^{e}tre" should.
>
>I'm in two minds as to the circumflex, though. Here's why. Since
>"raison d'\^{e}tre" has a circumflex in French, it would continue
>having it in English, at least in my writing. Now in French
>capitalised vowels lose their accents, while in English there is no
>such rule. So if it is first borrowed and then capitalised, it should
>end up as "Raison d'\^{E}tre".
>
>Other opinions from accent-sensitive people?
To my mind, from a french point of view, it is obvious that "raison
d'\^{e}tre" should be capitalised in "Raison d'Etre" without any
accent. I think that you can't apply the English rule of capitalised
vowels with accents in the French part of the sentence.
But, it is only my "point de vue"... !
Mark Brader
> "raison d'\^{e}tre" has a circumflex in French, it would continue
> having it in English, at least in my writing. Now in French
> capitalised vowels lose their accents, while in English there is no
> such rule.
In French capitalized vowels *optionally* lose their accents, while in
English all accents are optional in the first place. It is therefore
clear-cut that you can go either way on this.
--
Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto "... pure English is de rigueur"
utzoo!sq!msb, m...@sq.com -- Manchester Guardian Weekly
This article is in the public domain.
Yash Holbrook
>I want to use "raison d'etre" as a part of a title, but am not sure
>how to capitalise it.
>
>"The Raison d'Etre of ..."
This would the the way to do it...it wouldn't make any sense to
capitalize the "d", as it means nothing more than "to" or "of".
--Yash
Yash Holbrook
>
>"raison d'\^{e}tre" has a circumflex in French, it would continue
>having it in English, at least in my writing. Now in French
>capitalised vowels lose their accents, while in English there is no
>such rule. So if it is first borrowed and then capitalised, it should
>end up as "Raison d'\^{E}tre".
>
>Other opinions from accent-sensitive people?
>
Since you ask for opinions...
I think it would be mistaken to stick a circumflex over the capital
"E", for one of the reasons you mention yourself. In French, the
capital letter loses any accent mark. Why should WE add one? We
certainly can't be said to be adding anything to the word, since
the accent has no effect whatsoever on the way the French phrase
is pronounced in English. It seems to me that adding an accent
to a phrase that doesn't have one in the original language might
be a little presumptuous.
--Yash
p.s. Comments welcome
C. Thomas Eyford III
yhol...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Yash Holbrook) writes:
> >>"The Raison d'Etre of ..."
> >
> >I'm in two minds as to the circumflex, though. Here's why. Since
> >"raison d'\^{e}tre" has a circumflex in French, it would continue
> >having it in English, at least in my writing. Now in French
> >capitalised vowels lose their accents, while in English there is no
> >such rule. So if it is first borrowed and then capitalised, it should
> >end up as "Raison d'\^{E}tre".
> >
> >Other opinions from accent-sensitive people?
> >
To be blunt, English has no such rule of accent deletion, etc. simply
because it has no accents, pure and simple. Therefore, it seems
logical to assume the rules for accents of the language we are
borrowing the phrase from. Proceeding on this assumption, the
'correct' capitalization should be
Raison d'Etre
-Tom
David Wald
>>
>>I'm in two minds as to the circumflex, though. Here's why. Since
>>"raison d'\^{e}tre" has a circumflex in French, it would continue
>>having it in English, at least in my writing. Now in French
>>capitalised vowels lose their accents, while in English there is no
>>such rule. So if it is first borrowed and then capitalised, it
>>should end up as "Raison d'\^{E}tre".
>>
>>Other opinions from accent-sensitive people?
>
>Since you ask for opinions...
>
>I think it would be mistaken to stick a circumflex over the capital
>"E", for one of the reasons you mention yourself. In French, the
>capital letter loses any accent mark. Why should WE add one?
I know this quotation is frequently circulated, but I always think of
it when people discuss the correct use of diacritics in English, so
here it comes again:
English is a straightforward, frank, honest, open-hearted,
no-nonsense language, which has little truck with such devilish
devious devices as accents; indeed U.S. editors and printers are
often thrown into a dither when a foreign word insinuates itself
into the language. However, there is one word on which Americans
seem to have closed ranks, printing it confidently, courageously,
and almost invariably complete with accent---the cheese presented
to us as M\"unster.
Unfortunately, Munster doesn't take an accent.
--- Waverly Root, in the International Herald Tribune (1982)
--
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David Wald wa...@theory.lcs.mit.edu
"Blessed are the peacocks, for they shall be called sonship of God"
-- Matt 5:9, from a faulty QuickVerse 2.0
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