Pet Shop Boys Community

Patrick Bateman wrote:

No Muscle Mary wrote:Neil corrects West End Girls to West End girls.

He got this one wrong. The title of a song is a proper noun, therefore gets capitals. How can you give The Pop Kids full capitals and not the girls in West End Girls? I worked as a sub-editor for years, and it's rarely Neil gets something wrong, but he's wrong on this one.

Surely West End girls are simply girls from the West End, just as Brazilian girls are girls from Brazil? If it was The West End Girls, or West End Girls the group, then it would be a proper noun. As it is, it's a common noun with an adjective preceding it.

Similarly, The Pop Kids is a proper noun because it refers to a specific couple of people, rather than pop kids in general.

Yes, but look at how other bands capitalise their song titles. Neil had to make a point years ago that PSB were in a sense breaking the rules!

for example "Lyrics of the day" are wrong today! it goes "in love with he" and corret is "IN LOVE WITH ME"!

A song title is supposed to have all capitals because it is a TITLE, therefore proper nouns throughout. It's the NAME of a thing.

Yes, Neil is breaking the norms here.

I had these rules drummed into me in primary school.

http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capit ... songs.html

West End Girls gets capitals because it is the name of a song. The fact that the West End is also a place, is irrelevant here. Neil has made this into a song title, therefore it gets capitals, girls bit included.

Sandy Shaw wrote:

Patrick Bateman wrote:

No Muscle Mary wrote:Neil corrects West End Girls to West End girls.

He got this one wrong. The title of a song is a proper noun, therefore gets capitals. How can you give The Pop Kids full capitals and not the girls in West End Girls? I worked as a sub-editor for years, and it's rarely Neil gets something wrong, but he's wrong on this one.

Surely West End girls are simply girls from the West End, just as Brazilian girls are girls from Brazil? If it was The West End Girls, or West End Girls the group, then it would be a proper noun. As it is, it's a common noun with an adjective preceding it.

Similarly, The Pop Kids is a proper noun because it refers to a specific couple of people, rather than pop kids in general.

Yes, but look at how other bands capitalise their song titles. Neil had to make a point years ago that PSB were in a sense breaking the rules!

Exactly

bohemians. wrote:for example "Lyrics of the day" are wrong today! it goes "in love with he" and corret is "IN LOVE WITH ME"!

Hello bohemians all lower case!

It is a deliberate lyric, so that Neil can rhyme " he" with " me".
One could argue it should be " When you're in love with him" though! Of course the rhyme gets lost. Neil again is making a conscious choice here, not a mistake!

"I want to wake up" is a great lyric to examine for this thread as Neil refers to "Tainted Love" and "Love Is Strange" with conventional capitalisation - showing that he can do it when he wants to! Not being PSB titles, they warrant more conventional capitalisation.

rollo wrote:... or you could just respect the artist's preference, and Neil has said that their song titles are normally written as sentences. I'm not sure what's going on with the latest material though.

Chris, on the other hand, is clearly not as OCD as the rest of us...

Haha! There's a lovely bit in the Super launch video where he says, tongue firmly in cheek something like " We're sticklers for punctuation". This was in connection with "What is Super?" website not having a question mark, which of course it couldn't have in the url.

Sandy Shaw wrote:

bohemians. wrote:for example "Lyrics of the day" are wrong today! it goes "in love with he" and corret is "IN LOVE WITH ME"!

Hello bohemians all lower case!

It is a deliberate lyric, so that Neil can rhyme " he" with " me".
One could argue it should be " When you're in love with him" though! Of course the rhyme gets lost. Neil again is making a conscious choice here, not a mistake!

"I want to wake up" is a great lyric to examine for this thread as Neil refers to "Tainted Love" and "Love Is Strange" with conventional capitalisation - showing that he can do it when he wants to! Not being PSB titles, they warrant more conventional capitalisation.

Is there a song called Love Is Strange, or does it refer to Strange Love by Depeche Mode? Anyone know?

No Muscle Mary wrote:

Sandy Shaw wrote:

bohemians. wrote:for example "Lyrics of the day" are wrong today! it goes "in love with he" and corret is "IN LOVE WITH ME"!

Hello bohemians all lower case!

It is a deliberate lyric, so that Neil can rhyme " he" with " me".
One could argue it should be " When you're in love with him" though! Of course the rhyme gets lost. Neil again is making a conscious choice here, not a mistake!

"I want to wake up" is a great lyric to examine for this thread as Neil refers to "Tainted Love" and "Love Is Strange" with conventional capitalisation - showing that he can do it when he wants to! Not being PSB titles, they warrant more conventional capitalisation.

Is there a song called Love Is Strange, or does it refer to Strange Love by Depeche Mode? Anyone know?

See Wayne's annotations to "I want to wake up" at www.geowayne.com
Yes, the song is called " Love Is Strange".

This one speaks for itself!

No Muscle Mary wrote:A song title is supposed to have all capitals because it is a TITLE, therefore proper nouns throughout. It's the NAME of a thing.

Yes, Neil is breaking the norms here.

I had these rules drummed into me in primary school.

http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capit ... songs.html

West End Girls gets capitals because it is the name of a song. The fact that the West End is also a place, is irrelevant here. Neil has made this into a song title, therefore it gets capitals, girls bit included.

Yes, but he has always made it clear that he does this and, like Harry, I've always considered it to be a favorable trait. It's a very Modernist manifesto.

In the end, it's a matter of style.

Drico.

Drico One wrote:In the end, it's a matter of style.

Drico.

Yep. For those who are stuck on "West End girls" - for those for whom it looks plain wrong, check it out on the lyrics page in the list of song titles. Wouldn't a capital G start looking wrong!?

"West End Girls" looks better with a capital G, but a complete sentence like "We all feel better in the dark" looks better that way - as it IS a sentence. I love that the PSB print their titles in this way because we write like that in Swedish!

...always decited starting the names of every single word for the digital music files with capitals... such a songname is a noun for me.

since 1999

Harry wrote:
I remember Neil being very adamant about 'Love etc.' having no comma after love as the 'et' in 'etcetera' is French for 'and'. Because it's an abbreviation it gets a full stop too!

Harry

Unlike Drico!
http://www.petshopboys-forum.com/viewto ... =1&t=19647