Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!jack
From: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Small Caps Usage
Message-ID: <2797@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 14 Apr 89 14:29:19 GMT
References: <2370@cps3xx.UUCP> <667@h-three.UUCP>
Reply-To: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
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jimi@h-three.UUCP (jimi) wrote:
> smithda@cpsvax.cps.msu.edu (J. Daniel Smith) writes:
>> Does anyone have a set of rules about when something should be set in
>> "small-caps"?
  
> Small caps often substitute for caps in abbreviations where regular caps
> used throughout the text would be overly assertive and therefore distracting
> ([e.g.,] in the abbreviations A.M., P.M., B.C., A.D., NASA, AFL/CIO, ILGWU).
  
> In prose small caps are often used decoratively, for example to set the
> first few words of the first line of a paragraph that starts with a drop cap.

[ references: "Phototypesetting: A Design Manual" (James Craig) and the
  Chicago Manual of Style ]

I think this may depend on where you live.  I had a look round my office and
couldn't find any European examples of the first sort of use (with
abbreviations), while the second, "decorative" form (as in "THEOREM:") seems
more common here than in the US.  (I also discovered that Polish publishers
are dead keen on  e x p a n d e d  text in the same sort of position, which
looks horrible to me).

Since some of Strunk and White's grammar would make most British people
cringe, it's not surprising that typographic style isn't entirely portable
either.

-- 
Jack Campin  *  Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank
Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, SCOTLAND.    041 339 8855 x6045 wk  041 556 1878 ho
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