Talk:Preamble to the United States Constitution

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Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2024

It is requested that an edit be made to the semi-protected article at Preamble to the United States Constitution. (edit · history · last · links · protection log)

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Change "Order" in the preamble to "order".

"Order" in the preamble has a capitalized O. Currently, it shows "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,", despite the fact that the capitalization of that word is grammatically incorrect and does not appear to be capitalized in the original. I think it should be changed to "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union," KayoBoba (talk) 07:06, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done for now, although other editors may revert and discuss. Have used the first printing of the Constitution, which lowercases 'order'. The engrossed original is questionable, and could be read either way. Will ping Rjensen for guidance here. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the original handwritten constitution the "O" in order stands slightly above the 'r', 'e', and 'r', and is at the same height as the 'd', so casing may depend on point of view. I've followed the edit request using the first printed copy as the default, although this may have or may have not been changed in later copies and in modern renditions. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:46, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Will revert back to the uppercase for now per the National Archives transcript. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

the lower case is the original text passed by Congress--the capital-O was added by an engraver without any official approval by Congress for his change. Rjensen (talk) 10:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rjensen, here's where it gets tricky. The National Archives, Britannica, and many other sources uppercase 'Order', and it took awhile to find this example of early lowercasing. Logic and commonsense clash with sources here, an example of Wikipedia's constant dilemma. Do you have a definitive source for lowercasing, or is the link I just provided enough to lowercase. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:01, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Look at "The Official Edition of the Constitution, the First Printing of the Final Text of the Constitution" at https://hyperallergic.com/695096/an-original-copy-of-us-constitution-becomes-most-expensive-document-ever-sold/ the timing is important--typo changes were made after this one. See official history pp 8-9 at https://archive.org/details/journalactsproce1819unit/page/9/mode/1up

Rjensen (talk) 13:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

a comment on expertise: the job of the National Archives is to obtain and preserve historic documents. (I spent several years on the Board of the Illinois State Archives where we discussed these roles.) They do not much read or interpret them. At Sotheby where they collect $$$$ on sales their experts look for evidence of historic timing. The "first" makes a $$$$$ difference compared to "second". So when they say this is "the first printing" it's credible. And they have the exact dates too. Rjensen (talk) 14:54, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]