capital letters

15:53 Feb 19, 2015 

Ik heb onlangs een klinisch onderzoek vertaald en kreeg (Nederlandse?) correcties waarbij Elk Individueel Woord In De Titel Met Een Hoofdletter Begon, Zelfs De Woorden Van En De e.d. Ik moest die correcties goed- of afkeuren, en ik heb ze dus afgekeurd.

15:49 Feb 19, 2015 

het is absoluut Amerikaans!

15:46 Feb 19, 2015 

Volgens mij wordt het uit het Amerikaans overgenomen. Ik moest laatst een Amerikaans contract vertalen en het wemelde van de hoofdletters. Bizar!

15:25 Feb 19, 2015 

Het antwoord is NEE!

Ik begrijp trouwens ook niet de toename van het hoofdlettergebruik in het Engels, nieuwe trend? Volgens mij is het officieel incorrect, lijkt wel alsof ze de Duitsers willen kopiëren.

12:01 Feb 19, 2015 

As a rule, I try to avoid full word caps or first caps, because it is just not the Dutch way to do it. We would rather use italics, and I do if this makes it more clear (or mark the text, add a note). I always make a note and explain to a client and never had complaints. I am not aware that they revert it. If inconsistent, you 'have a right' (or obligation...) to improve it, unless it's so bad that you can't figure it out. In that case I would follow the source, again with a note explaining why. Ps: of course I use Dutch rules such as quotation marks, and sometimes what Ron explains about Company, but your description seems different than that.

10:20 Feb 19, 2015 

Well that's it Ron, the job I'm working on, the finished product would result in so much capitalization that you cannot see the wood from the trees!

10:01 Feb 19, 2015 

I agree with Steven: when it's a definition with 'hereinafter...' or something similar, I usually capitalize, unless they're defining 10-20 terms and you end up capitalizing every other word.

Capitalizing is especially useful when, for example, the company in question is defined as 'the Company' and at the same time 'company' is being used for other companies.

But in this particular case, when they capitalize only certain words from a list of definitions, I would use lowercase for all terms.

09:49 Feb 19, 2015 

I would, yes. But you can perfectly argue that, even there, there is no capitalization needed.

09:46 Feb 19, 2015 

I have instances where the text states "hereinafter called "Employee"" Would you in that instance write the Dutch translation for Employee with a capital in the document?

09:42 Feb 19, 2015 

I don't use capitalization, as this is not the norm in Dutch. I only use it when a contract defines a term, if later instances of that word are meant to refer back to that definition.