NovaRoma talk:Article Names

Under GENERAL, is there a rule about using the underbar instead of spaces? If so, shouldn't we spell that out?

I think the wiki automatically substitutes underscores when you type spaces anyway, so it doesn't matter too much. - Cordus 11:39, 31 August 2006 (CDT)

Capital letters in titles of leges

At Agricola's suggestion, I'll move the discussion here from the wiki e-mail list. To recap, my view is that the policy for the titles of leges should be the same as the policy for article-titles in general: all lower-case except for the initial letters of proper nouns. In practice this means the only capital letter will be the first letter of the name of the proposing magistrate, e.g. lex Popillia senatoria. The arguments in favour of this are:

• It's in line with the policy for other article-titles;
• It's closer to Roman practice (i.e. no distinction between capitals and lower-case at all);
• It encourages people to think of the names of leges in a more Roman way (i.e. as simple factual descriptions rather than "titles").

- Cordus 11:11, 31 August 2006 (CDT)

Roman and Arabic numerals

As far as I can discover there is currently no general policy on when to use Roman numerals and when to use Arabic numerals. There is only a specific policy of using Roman numerals to writes dates AUC. I suggest we should decide and publish a general policy.

As for what the policy should be, I suggest that when the surrounding text is in any language other than Latin all numbers should be written in Arabic numerals (unless written out in letters, of course). No modern language uses Roman numerals in preference to Arabic numerals, and there can be no good reason to use Roman numerals in the middle of a passage of English, Spanish, or German text.

That leaves the question of whether, and when, Arabic numerals should be used in Latin phrases or sentences. I think that is really a question about how the modern Latin language should be written, and as such is a question best decided by the Latin-speaking community, so I suggest that our polic be based on modern usage among Latin-speakers and on the opinions of informed speakers of the language. What that usage and those opinions are is something I shall try to discover.

I finally add the remark that there is a practical reason to minimize the use of Roman numerals: programmes which automatically place things in alphabetical lists are unable to distinguish Roman numerals from words, and therefore unhelpfully put them in alphabetical rather than numerical order (e.g. III II IV IX I VIII VII VI V X = 3 2 4 9 1 8 7 6 5 10).

- Cordus 17:53, 21 June 2007 (CEST)