What is the correct way to present the author's abbreviated name?

[AnnieQuinn]

Hello.
For example: J.R.R. Tolkien
What is the standard way to present:
1/ J.R.R. Tolkien
2/ J. R. R. Tolkien
I asked Chatgpt, it replied that it was way number 1.
But on some book covers published in my country, I saw that they wrote way number 2.
Thank you for reading and answering.

[pdurrant]

Some people like one way, some people like another. There is no standard.

These threads might be of interest:
Discussion of full stops or not: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=366638

How to use Quality Check plugin to set a standard for your library: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=368498

[Quoth]

Yet again, ChatGPT is wrong. #2 is marginally more common than 1. Pick a standard.

There are 4 ways, but the first 2 are common.

3rd: Author initials without space or periods.
4th: There maybe books with all lower case.

All of this only applies to some languages. Some don't have periods for abbreviation or upper and lower case.

[uli]

The Library of Congress uses spaces, everything else is wrong. /sarcasm

"Adjacent personal name initials/letters or an abbreviation for a name and an adjacent name or initial/letter are separated by one space."

https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bdx00.html

[Moonbase59]

The German National Library (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek; DNB) and Wikipedia also use one space (and the period).

Good thing to know, since there’s also a Calibre metadata source plugin for DNB (DNB_DE).

Thanks for bringing this up, @AnnieQuinn—I’ve always been a little unsure about this!

[Jaws]

The "right way" also depends in part on what field the book is in. For example, most nontrade STEM books insist on no spaces ("J.R.R. Tolkein"), and in some subfields no periods either ("JRR Tolkein" — or, rather, "Tolkein, JRR").

I personally favor the last for everything, because at least for filenames I try to avoid periods for anything except the file extension (.epub) and volume/edition/year numbers where those are truly significant and I'm keeping other volumes/editions/years that otherwise have the same title. But then, I'm weird.

[DNSB]

Since this is for your use in your library, pick whatever format you are comfortable with. Using Tolkien, I would use J. R. R. Tolkien. OTOH, one friend of mine does not like what she considers to be unnecessary spaces or periods and so would use JRR Tolkien. As long as you are consistent, it make it easier to find an author.

OTOH, I will take no responsibility if you find black SUVs filled with punctuation police parking outside your home.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

OTOH, I will take no responsibility if you find black SUVs filled with punctuation police parking outside your home.

Some people really do carry paints and fix missing or extra apostrophes in signage!
Lynn Truss's "Eats shoots and leaves", a book on punctuation, has about 1/3rd dedicated to the subject.
My "New Penguin Dictionary of Abbreviations" doesn't actually address this issue or the pm and am issue. Style guides do.

The most important thing, as DNSB writes, is whatever you pick it must be consistent.

A writer needs a personal style guide with even things such as nosey versus nosy. There are multiple correct spellings in British English. Do not believe "AI" or a spelling checker.

[Moonbase59]

Wise words.

And actually I’m always very much tempted to correct the often-used apostrophe before a genitive-s in German signage (»John’s Bar« would be »Johns Bar« in German). It’s appropriately called »Deppen-Apostroph« in German. ;-) Many people now even use an apostrophe before a plural-s. Makes me cringe. Punctuation police indeed…

100% YES to using a style guide (and a glossary) as a writer!

[Quoth]

German and others: „quote marks”
If there is a quotation inside speech in German: ,Das Boot’ (name of the film "The Boat")

French: «Alors!»
Irish, USA, some UK: “quotes”
Other UK ‘quotes’
Typewriter or programming string "string" or 'string'
Single prime (feet, minutes): ′
Double prime (inches, seconds): ″

Linux helps.

Note Wordprocessors often do an opening single quote instead of an apostrophe on anything initially abbreviated. Seen this even on Penguin: ’tis, ’90s etc, never ‘tis, ‘90s

[Moonbase59]

Got the German ones wrong: „A ‚quote‘ within a quote.“
In book typesetting: »A ›quote‹ within a quote.«

I learned to remember the former quotes as „99-66“. Unfortunately, some sans-serif fonts got these wrong. Fortunately, German mostly uses the reversed guillemets for book typesetting. Look much better, too.

German also has different rules for punctuation inside/outside quotes. And all the other differences—quite an interesting field if you’re into microtypography! I sometimes have to readjust a little when it comes to UK vs US typography. Reading and writing in all these forums quickly gets one “americanized”…

Oh, and French would use narrow non-breaking spaces (U+202F) inside the guillemets: « Bonjour ! »
I also use this between adjacent nested quotes in English texts: ‘Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” ’

Calibre’s “smarten punctuation” constantly gets things like ’cause, ’tis, etc. wrong. Just worked on some books and had to rework all these. In hindsight, it would have been faster doing all quoting manually in the first place.

But we digress… ;-)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Moonbase59

Oh, and French would use narrow non-breaking spaces (U+202F) inside the guillemets: « Bonjour ! »

And some (many, most?) other punctuation. No doubt I'd figure how to do it easily if I was writing French.

I'm glad I only write in English, and that's hard enough, but nothing is any harder if it's what you grew up with.