Question about correct way to write titles with proper nouns

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letena

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Hi,
I am currently working on catering places.
If there are native English language speakers, could you advise me, which way is it correct or widely acceptable to write the name of the catering place and its descriptive word, e.g.
Cafe White Dunes or
White Dunes Cafe (when it's a title, but the word 'cafe' is not a part of the official name of the cafeteria, but I want to have it there to make it clear that the place is the cafe, not a restaurant).

Or another example:
The Hotel West Side
West Side Hotel,
when 'hotel' is not an official part of the name.

Thank you.
 

teechar

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Why are "cafe" and "hotel" not part of the official names of those establishments? To me "White Dunes" or "West Side" on their own do not indicate what kind of business we are talking about.
 

Charlie Bernstein

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Hi,
I am currently working on catering places.

What do you mean? Are you writing about them? Are you working at them? Are you building them? Are you studying them?


If there are native English language speakers, could you advise me? Which way is it correct or widely acceptable to write the name of the catering place and its descriptive word, e.g.
Cafe White Dunes

If all three words are its name, they should all be capitalized.


or
White Dunes cafe (when it's a title, but the word 'cafe' is not a part of the official name of the cafeteria, but I want to have it there to make it clear that the place is the cafe, not a restaurant).

If the word cafe is not in the name, don't capitalize it. Capitals are only for proper names, initials, and first letters of sentences.


Or another example:
The hotel called West Side
West Side hotel,
when 'hotel' is not a[STRIKE]n official[/STRIKE] part of the name.

Again, only capitalize proper nouns: West Side cafe.


Can you give us complete sentences? Then we can give you better answers.

Whether it's official is not important. You can call your mother Mother even though that's not her "official" name.


Thank you.
Also note that while we write Maple Street and Syrup Street, we write Maple and Syrup streets.
 

letena

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Hi.
Thank you very much for the answers. Thank you also for correcting my language where I was asking the question :) I am also an English teacher so it's great to get so much feedback in one answer :)
The problem is, I have to make headlines, whereby when you click on them on a website, more information can be found.
So, I have to have all of the words West Side hotel as a headline or a title, if you wish, for a page in a webpage. As titles are capitalised in the English language, I would have to capitalise the word hotel as well. Then comes the problem that if I capitalise hotel, which is not a part of the official name of the business, it is not clear where the name of the hotel stars and where it ends.
That was my original question :)
 

Tdol

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Can't you make it clear below the title? It makes sense to capitalise in the title. Now you can see West Side is a hotel in....
 

Rover_KE

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I am also an English teacher so it's great to get so much feedback in one answer. :)
Please don't allow your students to use smileys to replace standard punctuation marks.

As you are an English teacher, please edit your profile to say so. We can often assist you better knowing that you are a non-native English teacher. We have several such members.
 

Glizdka

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Not a teacher
------


I can't really tell why, but I prefer "White Dunes Café" if all the three words comprise the name, and "café White Dunes" when only White Dunes is the name, and café serves just as a sort of explanation of what kind of business it is.

I'd like to know what our teachers think about my opinion.
 
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Charlie Bernstein

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Hi.
Thank you very much for the answers. Thank you also for correcting my language where I was asking the question. :) I am also an English teacher, so it's great to get so much feedback in one answer. :)
The problem is, I have to make headlines, whereby when you click on them on a website, more information can be found.
So, I have to have all of the words West Side hotel as a headline or a title, if you wish, for a page in a webpage. As titles are capitalised in the English language, I would have to capitalise the word hotel as well.

That's fine. Do it.

Then comes the problem that if I capitalise hotel, which is not a part of the official name of the business, it is not clear where the name of the hotel stars and where it ends.

So what? If you're capitalizing everything, capitalize Hotel.


That was my original question
. :)

Your original question did not ask about writing headlines.
Context matters!
 
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jutfrank

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I'm not sure I understand very well what you're doing but it seems to me that you really ought to separate the name of the establishment from the type of establishment clearly. How you do that would depend on your stylistic preferences, among other things.

White Dunes (café)
The Hilton (hotel)
 

Tdol

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I can't really tell why, but I prefer "White Dunes Café" if all the three words comprise the name, and "café White Dunes" when only White Dunes is the name.

I prefer White Dunes is a café for the latter. Adjust text accordingly.
 
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emsr2d2

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If you're writing a headline in which all the words have to be capitalised, I'd go with a version of ted's suggestion about word order, or I'd add some punctuation.

White Dunes Hotel Burns Down Overnight (The name of the hotel is "White Dunes Hotel")
Hotel White Dunes Burns Down Overnight (The name of the hotel is "White Dunes")
White Dunes, Hotel, Burns Down Overnight (The name of the hotel is "White Dunes")

You could also italicise the words that form the name of the hotel to make it clear they are separate.

White Dunes Hotel Burns Down Overnight

In all honesty, I'm not really sure it matters! If someone read that headline and decided they wanted to know more about the hotel, they would probably just Google "white dunes hotel + name of town", using no capitalisation at all.
 
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