Talk:Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965

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Short title

The UK Statute Law Database [1] is a source for the fact that the definite article is not part of the short title because: (1) it gives the short title at the top of the page and the first word is "Murder" not "The" and (2) the short title is given by section 3 and "the" starts with a lower case T, indicating it is not part of the actual title (i.e. the "the" only has to be there so that the sentence makes grammatical sense). Richard75 (talk) 16:58, 1 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have had this discussion before at User talk:Andrew Gwilliam and elsewhere. The salient points are: (1) It is not clear that the headings on Legisltion.gov.uk are necessarily short titles. For example this page is headed "Burghs of Barony (Scotland) Act 1795" but annotation C1 says that the short title of the Act with which the page deals is "The Burghs of Barony (Scotland) Act 1795" (my emphasis). In any event, the heading on this page does not say that the short title is "Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965" because that heading is not a sentence. (2) It is not clear that the capitalization of the definite article in the text of the Act proves anything. I think that what is required is at least one source that says that it does mean something in express words e.g. "the definite article is not capitalized because it is not part of the short title". James500 (talk) 17:29, 1 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would also observe that the definite article used to be capitalized. For example, printed copies of section 1 of the Offences against the Person Act 1875 read:

This Act may be cited as "The Offences against the Person Act, 1875".

Since the words have not changed, it is difficult to see how the meaning could have changed. James500 (talk) 17:41, 1 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]