This is strictly a matter of
taste. If you look through the
Oxford English Grammar you will not find these rules, or at least you will not find them articulated clearly. Nonetheless, they are the
de facto standard for the case
capitalization in the
English-speaking world, or, at least in the English-speaking world of the
academy.
These rules are good to know. But, like most rules, they are much better to break and to flaunt. According to the MLA Handbook, you should capitalize:
- The first word of each sentence. That's the easy part.
- Nouns (e.g., flowers and Europe as in The Flowers of Europe)
- Pronouns (e.g., our as in Save Our Children, that, as in The Mouse That Roared)
- Verbs (e.g., watches as in America Watches Television, is as in What Is Literature?)
- Adjectives (e.g. ugly as in The Ugly Duckling, that as in Who Said That Phrase?)
- Adverbs (e.g. slightly as in Only Slightly Corrupt, down as in Go Down, Moses)
- Subordinating conjunctions (e.g. after, although, as if, as soon as, because, before, if, that, unless, until, when, where, while as in One If by Land and Anywhere That Chance Leads)
The Man, however, does not want you to put your caps on:
- Articles (a, an, the as in Under the Bamboo Tree)
- Prepositions (e.g., against, between, in, of, to as in The Merchant of Venice and "A Dialogue between Soul and Body")
- Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet as in Romeo and Juliet)
- The to in infinitives (as in How to Play Chess)
As you can see, title case is one of the most picky parts of
English pedantism. It's very hard to do correctly, and when you do put the effort in most people can't tell. This doesn't make title case a useless thing to know -- if you have to write a
paper, it will save you from the
scorn of your
professor. But, in practical terms, title case seems as antiquated as the rules for capitalization we can observe by reading the original
text of the
Declaration of Independence, which is to say that they are vestiges of a language system that is in constant flux. So know the rules, but play around with them. Break them. That's what language rules are for, or else we'll never be able to express new ideas within our language systems.
Perhaps this is giving entirely too much weight to the simple issue of capitalization. But look at the word, for crying out loud. "Capitalization." If that's not a walking lesson, I don't know what is.