Your existing answer would require an infinite number of lines, one for each number. Also, in the computer age when tables and other finding aids are programmatically generated, using the number-by-number approach requires only ten lines of computer code. For 2014 there is not yet a common convention: I have heard both “two thousand fourteen” and “twenty fourteen.” I would think that the correct method is to alphabetize by spelling out each number individually. My question is: Why nineteen? What if the title were 1,939 Pieces of Candy? The convention of saying “nineteen thirty-nine” for a date is simply that, a convention. In rare instances you could post an important title at both locations or add a cross-reference directing the reader to the location of the full citation. However, in lists where many such titles begin with numbers, you might rather group them all in numerical order at the beginning.
It became commonplace after the Renaissance. Some lists in alphabetical order were used during the early Roman Empire. It is done by following the standard (usual) order of letters in an alphabet. It helps a reader to find a name or a title in the list. It’s usual to file a title like that under the spelled-out version of the number, in this case, nineteen. Alphabetical order is a way to sort ( organize) a list.
In a bibliography where the title of an unsigned article is a date (“1939: The Beginning of the End”), does the bibliography begin with this entry, or is it alphabetized according to its spelled-out word?Ī. Note also that if you were to disregard “On the,” Darwin would follow Raff. Note that the “And” in the first item counts if it didn’t, “And I Love Her” would be listed second. Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas (Raff) To make it easier for readers to find things, entries with articles are inverted: But at the beginning of main index entries-and, by extension, any ordinary list-only articles ( a, an, and the) are ignored. Not only is “and” ignored in the second subentry, but so are “of” and “in” in the first and third subentries like conjunctions, prepositions are ignored at the beginning of index subentries, as are articles (see CMOS 16.68). Alphabetical order is a way to sort ( organize) a list. Hyphenation: of compound modifiers, 147 and line breaks, 108 in Microsoft Word, 148 No fair looking it up on Google Update: One more rule to help you guys. if it contains the same letter twice in a row, that does not disqualify it. For example, here’s what an entry for “hyphenation” might look like in a book index: What is the longest word you can come up with for which all the letters in that word are in alphabetical order Rules: English words only Cant be a name of a place, person or other proper noun. A conjunction would also count at the beginning of an entry, with one notable exception: index subentries. In Chicago style, any word occurring in the middle of an entry, including a conjunction, counts in alphabetization (whether word by word or letter by letter), so your second ordering is correct (the a in “and” precedes the e in “experiments”).