CEN/TC304/WG1 KTN7R
ISO SC22/WG20 N482
Date: 1996-08-10

Title: CAPITALS before SMALLS

Source: Michael Everson, Everson Gunn Teoranta (IE)
Status: Expert Contribution
Action: For consideration by CEN/TC304/WG1 and SC22/WG20
Distribution: CEN/TC304/WG1, SC22/WG20

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1990) consistently gives its articles with capital letters preceding small letters:

AS (Anglo-Saxon) precedes As (arsenic) precedes as (thus); August (the month) precedes august (impressive); Jock (a Scotsman) precedes jock (a jockey); LA (Los Angeles) precedes La (lanthanum) precedes la (a note to follow so...); March (the month) precedes march (walk); May (the month) precedes may (be permitted); Min. (Minster, Ministry) precedes min. (minutes, minimum, minim); Scotch (whisky) precedes scotch (put an end to).

Even in the list of abbreviations: F. (French) precedes f. (from), Hist. (History) precedes hist. (with historical reference), Ind. (of the subcontinent comprising India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) precedes ind. (indirect), Med. (Medicine) precedes med. (medieval), Pers. (Persian) precedes pers. (person(al)), Rhet. (Rhetoric) precedes rhet. (rhetorical(ly)). There are other examples.

"English practice" cannot be said to support small-before-capital ordering. Oxford is authoritative. But there are other things which we can point to which show the naturalness of capital-before-small ordering (and the unnaturalness of small-before-capital ordering).

I There is a natural hierarchy of ranking.
A. We have all learned to expect capitals to precede smalls.
B. In outlines this expectation is met with most completely.
1. First the Roman numerals are given.
2. Then the capital Latin letters.
i. Numbers follow those.
ii. And after those, it's easy, we've got small Roman numerals.
a. And if that weren't enough, guess what comes next?
b. Yes! It's the small Latin letters!
C. Get the picture? Capitals precede smalls.

There is the general naturalness of ordinary writing. We write Aachen. We don't write aAchen. Take a pen and paper and try it. Write out Ab Cd Ef Gh Ij Kl Mn Op Qr St Uv Wx Yz. Then try writing out aB cD eF gH iJ kL mN oP qR sT uV wX yZ. Difficult, isn't it? Why shouldn't this similar expectation apply for Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz ��? the reverse, aA bB cC dD eE fF gG hH iI jJ kK lL mM nN oO pP qQ rR sS tT uU vV wW xX yY zZ �� is even hard to type. And it certainly looks wrong, doesn't it, given this context?

NOTE: In Irish Gaelic, forms like Gaeilge na h�ireann 'Irish Gaelic' and �r nAthair 'our Father' -- but in sorting these, the lower case character (which indicates particular grammatical mutation) is meant to be ignored. When the mutated noun is not capitalized, a hyphen is used (�r n-athair 'our father').

Historically, CAPITAL LETTERS existed before the small letters. (Well, they DID.)

Greek, Cyrillic, and Armenian specification is that capital letters precede small letters. It is logical to do the same for Latin.

These are reasons for why capital letters should precede small ones. I can think of no reason why small letters should precede capital letters in a default, multilingual sorting specification.