Template:Smallcaps

[edit] Template documentation

Usage

{{Smallcaps}} will display the lowercase part of your text as typographical small caps. You can most especially use this template for name/surname disambiguation in lead sections, and all-caps words or pronounceable acronyms.

Code  

{{Smallcaps|Your Text in 4004 bc}}

Displayed

Your Text in 4004 bc

Pasted  

Your Text in 4004 bc

Your source text is not altered in the output, only the way it is displayed on the screen: a copy-paste of the text will give the small caps sections in their original form; similarly, an older or non-CSS browser will only display the original text on screen. This can be seen as a problem, solved with {{sc}}.

Notes

• Diacritics (å, ç, é, ğ, ı, ñ, ø, ş, ü, etc.) are handled. However, because the job is performed by each reader's browser, inconsistencies in CSS implementations can lead to some browsers not converting certain rare diacritics.

• Use of this template does not generate any automatic categorization. As with most templates, if the argument contains an = sign, the sign should be replaced with {{=}}, or the whole argument be prefixed with 1=. And for wikilinks, you need to use piping. There is a parsing problem with MediaWiki which causes unexpected behavior when a template with one style is used within a template with another style.

Code examples

	Code	Display (screen)
Y	{{Smallcaps|The ''Name'' of the 2<sup>nd</sup> Game}}	The Name of the 2nd Game
Y	Leonardo {{Smallcaps|DiCaprio}} (born 1974)	Leonardo DiCaprio (born 1974)
Y	José {{Smallcaps|Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga}}	José Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga
Y	{{Smallcaps|Nesbø, Vågen, Louÿs, Zúñiga, Kabaağaçlı}}	Nesbø, Vågen, Louÿs, Zúñiga, Kabaağaçlı
When your text uses an = sign:
N	{{Smallcaps|You and Me = Us}}	{{{1}}}
Y	{{Smallcaps|You and Me &#61; Us}}	You and Me = Us
Y	{{Smallcaps|You and Me {{=}} Us}}	You and Me = Us
Y	{{Smallcaps|1=You and Me = Us}}	You and Me = Us
When your text uses a template:
N	in {{Smallcaps|Fiddler's {{Green{{!}}Green}}}} forever	Green}} forever
Y	in {{Smallcaps|1=Fiddler's {{Green|Green}}}} forever	in Fiddler's Green forever
Y	in {{Smallcaps|Fiddler's {{Green|Green}}}} forever	in Fiddler's Green forever
Y	{{Green|1=in {{Smallcaps|Fiddler's Green}} forever}}	in Fiddler's Green forever
Y	{{Colors|green|yellow|3=in {{Smallcaps|Fiddler's Green}} forever}}	in Fiddler's Green forever
When your text uses a | pipe:
N	{{Smallcaps|Before|afteR}}	Before
N	{{Smallcaps|1=Before{{!}}afteR}}	afteR
Y	{{Smallcaps|Before&#124;afteR}}	Before|afteR
When your text uses a link:
N	[[{{Smallcaps|Mao}} Zedong]]	[[Mao Zedong]]
Y	[[Mao Zedong|{{Smallcaps|Mao}} Zedong]]	Mao Zedong

Comparison of Template:Smallcaps and Template:sc

At the root, {{sc}} is an extension of {{Smallcaps}}: {{sc|Your Text}} is exactly equivalent output-wise to {{Smallcaps|Your Text}}). The differences arise when using the segmented syntax of {{sc}}:

Thesis - Advantages of {{sc}} over {{Smallcaps}}

• {{sc}} is WYSIWYG for the copy-pasted text (or degraded text in older browsers, or text snippet in search engines), no more Easter Eggs: output will still give at least "LORD" or "Lord GOD" or "MAO Zedong" or "BC"/"AD" – whereas Smallcaps outputs "Lord" and "Lord God" (theological errors) or "Mao Zedong" (loss of surname disambiguation) or "bc"/"ad" (incorrect).
• {{sc}} doesn't have the browser-dependent problems with uppercasing diacritics: most of the capitalization is done server-side by the dependable {{uc:}} (and if an error was found, it could be easily fixed in a centralized way by fixing the MediaWiki software).

Antithesis - Advantages of {{Smallcaps}} over {{sc}}

• {{Smallcaps}} has a simpler call syntax, whereas using {{sc}} beyond a synonym for {{Smallcaps}} requires understanding the segment paradigm, especially on extreme cases:
  • José {{Smallcaps|Álvarez de las Asturias de Bohórquez y Goyeneche}}
  • José {{sc|Á|lvarez| de las A|sturias| de B|ohórquez| y G|oyeneche}}

Synthesis - Possible magic word {{sc:}}

However, the only advantage of {{Smallcaps}} is because it relies on the browser parsing the text letter-by-letter, whereas a template such as {{sc}} can't, and thus need to be told what to do with successive segments.

• A server-side implementation of a new magic word {{sc:}} (on the model of {{lc:}} and {{uc:}}) would make the syntax easy again such as {{sc:Lord}}, {{sc:God}}, {{sc:Mao}} Zedong, Sinéad {{sc:O'Connor}}, Adolfo {{sc:Bioy Casares}}, or Danny {{sc:DeVito}} (parsing the text based on upper/lower case, as the CSS {{Smallcaps}} does in the browser).
• Segments would become optional, and available for when additional control is wanted on the copy-paste/degradation output, such as {{sc:D|e|Vito}} (if one wants to output an underlying "DeVITO" instead of "DEVITO", as {{sc:DeVito}} would do).

Reasons to use small caps

Small caps are useful for encyclopedical and typographical uses including:

To lighten ALL-CAPS words or pronounceable acronyms

• The biblical "Lord" (instead of LORD or Lord) or "Lord God" as written in some Bibles
• The acronyms Unesco (instead of UNESCO or Unesco) or Unicef
• The trademark Time (instead of TIME or Time)

To lighten ALL-CAPS surnames mandated by citation styles such as Harvard

• Piccadilly has been compared to "a Parisian boulevard" (Dickens 1879).
• Dickens, C., Jr (1879). "Piccadilly" in Dickens's Dictionary of London. London: C. Dickens.[1]

To disambiguate Western names and surnames at a glance

• Many Hispanic names are tricky to decompose:
  • Jorge Luis Borges, but Adolfo Bioy Casares (both filed under "B")
  • José Álvarez de las Asturias de Bohórquez y Goyeneche, Marqués de los Trujillos
• And many Hispanic names are better known by their second surname:
  • Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Federico García Lorca, Emir Rodríguez Monegal, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
• Many names (Martín, Miguel, Ramón, Tomás, etc.) can be either forename or surname:
  • Juan Martín Hernández vs. Rafael Martín Vázquez (two ball players)
• Hungarian names natively use the surname-first order:
  • Petőfi Sándor is usually westernized Sándor Petőfi

To disambiguate Eastern surnames and names at a glance

• Most Chinese names and Korean names retain their surname-first order:
  • Mao Zedong fought Chiang Kai-shek
  • The movie Oldboy by Park Chan-wook starring Choi Min-sik was not seen by Kim Il-sung
• Most Japanese names are reversed in the West, but not all:
  • (Akira Kurosawa or Motojirō Kajii are usually westernized)
  • But Matsuo Bashō, Ono no Komachi, Kaga no Chiyo (haiku poets known under their given name)
  • But Edogawa Ranpo (kept due to wordplay "EdgarA–llanPoe) vs. Ranpo Edogawa (some modern uses)
• Burmese names ignore the concept of forename/surname, but are adapted in the West:
  • Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of General Aung San ("Daw" is honorific, her name take part of his name)
• And some Burmese names are so short they need to retain an honorific prefix (U for Mister, Daw for Madam, Thakin for Master) which is confusable with a forename or a surname:
  • U Nu ("Mister Nu"), AKA Thakin Nu ("Master Nu")

Technical

Technically, the template merely wraps the standard:

<span style="font-variant:small-caps;"> ... </span>

(The "font-variant:small-caps;text-transform:lowercase" has not been used because it doesn't work at least in Internet Explorer 5 and 6, which are still fairly common browsers.)

See also

Alternative template that rewrites the output (copy-paste will get the small-caps as all-caps):

• {{sc}} – small caps output

Templates that change the display (copy-paste will get the original text):

• {{Nocaps}} – lower case display
• {{Smallcaps}} – small caps display
• {{Allcaps}} – upper case display

Magic words that rewrite the output (copy-paste will get the text as displayed):

• {{lc:}} – lower case output of the full text
• {{uc:}} – upper case output of the full text
• {{lcfirst:}} – lower case output of the first character only
• {{ucfirst:}} – upper case output of the first character only