Festive Capitalisation

[ah9815]

Does anyone know the correct way to capitalise the following sentence? Bear in mind that it is a sentence and not a banner...

"Sending you our best season's greetings, and wishing you a merry Christmas, and a happy and successful new year 2005."

Finally, does any one know what the most authoritative British English style book is? I only know of the Chicago Manual of Style, but this is an American English style book.

Many thanks!

[bernardo]

This sort of thing is very much a matter of personal preference, and it would depend on the spacing and where you put things on a new line, but I would put:

 

Sending you our best

Season's Greetings

and wishing you a

Merry Christmas

and a happy and successful

New Year 2005.

[ah9815]

To Bernardo: A very creative solution! Unfortunately this comes at the end of a paragraph of text as one sentence so it wouldn't be possible to put it in that kind of layout... (It is in the introduction (from chairman) of a magazine.)

 

[bernardo]

Oh... in that case the only change I would make would be a capital M for Merry.

[ah9815]

But why just the "Merry", why not the "season's greetings" and the "new year"? For me it seems illogical to capitalise just one of the words! I was hoping someone would tell me my sentence was correct as it stood but, alas, it seems it is a matter of style. Who would have thought sth so trivial would preoccupy me so much! ;-)

[smudge]

Wishing you every Happiness

for Christmas

and the New Year 2005

[Pester]

I'd suggest the 3rd edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage, edited by Robert Burchfield, or the Guardian Stylebook, edited by David Marsh. They're the ones I use, anyway! (Fowler's is much more 'traditional' and prescriptive; I like to have a couple of sources of reference to get a more balanced view.)

[ursula62]

I prefer "Bah Humbug"

[BetsyLou]

For stylebooks I use the Guardian Stylebook and the 3rd edtn of Fowler's Modern English Usage (I think it's good to have a couple of different references. Also I just like reading stylebooks, however sad that might sound!).

[Quizmonster]

For a century - with regular updates - Fowler's 'Modern English Usage' has been the key guide to the good use of British English.

The problem with most things called 'style guides' or 'style manuals' is that virtually every publication has its own...and they frequently disagree! Thus, every major publisher, broadcaster, newspaper and magazine in Britain has its own 'rules' and their sub-editors ensure that anything submitted for publication adheres to these particular ones.

Personally, I think they're best ignored, given that Fowler tells you pretty well everything you could hope to know. Go to the horse's mouth is my advice. I've even been known to advise people to rip up their style-manuals and use them to fire their next barbeque. Buy Fowler first, though!

[BetsyLou]

You can now buy the Guardian Stylebook, if you look on the link posted by allen above (or go to guardian.co.uk/styleguide), you will see they've recently brought it out in book form (�8.99). But it's free on the website so it might be a bit of a pointless purchase!

It's a matter of opinion, Quizmonster; Fowler's is quite 'old school', I find, and as some matters of language use are about 'style' not 'correctness', I reckon it's good to have more than one source. The Guardian's is easy to use and straightforward.

[Quizmonster]

Maybe so, Betsy, but then I'm 'old school', too. That's because 'new school' is too ready to accept horrors such as 'txt mssgng' and 'could of'!

Oh, I fully appreciate that language is a living, constantly-modifying thing, but I prefer the pace of change to be rather slower than it sometimes is. I'd still suggest Fowler - for just a few pounds more, I believe - as vastly better than anything from a single newspaper.

[BetsyLou]

I appreciate your position, Quizmonster, and I use Fowler's myself for the definitive answer if I'm in a quandry when writing an essay or formal letter (which, I suppose, gives my answer to ah9815's question). I wouldn't rely on a newspaper style guide for that, but different reference texts suit different purposes: you couldn't look to Fowler for the right way to spell a public figure's name, for example, which is one of the advantages of being open to using a regularly-updated online guide.

I agree with you about 'txt spk', by the way, I think it's vile!

[ah9815]

Thanks everyone for your helpful answers. I'm sure I'll find everything I need in Fowler's!

[Peter Pedant]

Why are you worrying about capitalisation when it is not a sentence anyway?

It doesnt have a main verb.

Imploring you otherwise to go with bernardo......

[Quizmonster]

You're absolutely right, Allen...I have never looked at the Guardian style guide. I've never looked at The Times one either or the Spectator's, not to mention the Sun's...need I go on?

If you own a Rolls Royce, do you look with interest at the latest Fiat Punto?

For the record, I did not suggest that the Guardian guide countenanced text messaging abbreviations; I said that only of a generalised 'new school'. Indeed, you seem to be supporting me by saying the Guardian guide "is one of the few modern guides that maintains the distinction between infer and imply." It is the very failure to maintain such distinctions that render them useless as far as I'm concerned, however good you feel the Guardian one itself may be.

And as for John Humphrys...well! Cheers

[ah9815]

Peter Pedant: Indeed it isn't a sentence as I have written in it above, but if it were one, which it is in the publication in question, I would now be inclined to agree with Bernando. Thanks once again!

Part of my confusion was capping "new year". "New Year" uppercase means the first few days of a year (like a holiday season) and "new year" lowercase refers to the next year in its entirety. Since the sentence includes "successful", "new year" (lowercase) is preferred since we are talking about the whole year and not just the holiday season (one assumes).

I agree it's not a great sentence but I was limited in terms of what I could edit...

Please let me know if I'm way off the mark! ;-)

By the way, I ordered my copy of Fowler's today and am also now familar with the Guardian style guide.