Board 8 > Put the following items in alphabetical order

(+) Yeah! (+)

If you were alphabetizing a list, how would you put the following in order:

electric eel
Final Fantasy VII
16th president
Red XIII
The Matrix
El Salvador
$5000
Five Guys
The Netherlands
electrical discharge
Sixteen Candles
El Topo
An Inconvenient Truth
The Little Mermaid
(un)invited
Some Like It Hot
Final Fantasy IX

$5000
16th president
An Inconvenient Truth
El Salvador
El Topo
electric eel
electrical discharge
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
Five Guys
The Little Mermaid
The Matrix
Red XIII
Sixteen Candles
Some Like It Hot
The Netherlands
(un)invited

The only one I'm not sure on is (un)invited. Could potentially go between $5000 and 16th president, but it depends on what it is referencing I think. Is it a title of something? Or just a random word with no context? I guess netherlands is questionable as well, but it's not a title like mermaid/matrix so I think it's fine to consider the "The".

$5000
16th president
El Salvador
El Topo
electric eel
electrical discharge
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
Five Guys
Inconvenient Truth, An
Little Mermaid, The
Matrix, The
Netherlands, The
Red XIII
Sixteen Candles
Some Like It Hot
(un)invited

a lot of this is technically wrong but i'm firmly on the side of bending rules to make it easier to actually find what you're looking for (also some rules are stupid). either way you've crafted a truly miserable list to try to pin down, well done OP.

$5000
(un)invited
16th president
An Inconvenient Truth
El Salvador
El Topo
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy VII
Five Guys
Red XIII
Sixteen Candles
Some Like It Hot
The Little Mermaid
The Matrix
The Netherlands
electric eel
electrical discharge

$5000
16th president
An Inconvenient Truth
El Salvador
El Topo
electric eel
electrical discharge
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
Five Guys
Red XIII
Sixteen Candles
Some Like It Hot
The Little Mermaid
The Matrix
The Netherlands
(un)invited

Of course, whether or not you should alphabetize by the word The really depends on the list of things and whether this is a digitally stored list, or like, a physical bookshelf or whatever, and also the content of the list (The is a more common beginning to a film or book title than a video game for instance), but as a general rule I usually mentally include the word The in alphabetization. And that way I don't have to make a decision on what to do with the El's! (Because it's a much less common thing to see in a list in the English language, I would still put them where they are regardless.) I also don't have to answer for An Inconvenient Truth here, but An is not a particularly common beginning word for titles so leaving it in A seems fine.

Roman numerals should be treated as though they are numbers, if possible.

The only thing I don't have a great answer for is why I'm putting $ (a special character) at the top of the list, but (un)invited at the bottom. I definitely want (un)invited at the bottom, putting it at the top feels awful; but putting $5000 below 16th president felt weird. Shrug!

I work circ in a library, and our local rules have it go:

16th president
$5000
El Salvador
electric eel
electrical discharge
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy VII
Five Guys
An Inconvenient Truth
The Little Mermaid
The Matrix
Red XIII
Sixteen Candles
Some Like it Hot
The Netherlands
El Topo
(un)invited

Reasoning for each:
- punctuation starters ignored
- Numbers come before letters. Spelled out numbers do not count. Smaller numbers before larger, even if letters are attached such as this example.
- Roman numerals are not numbers for the purposes of alphebetizing, which is why in this case ff9 goes before ff7 (dumb)
- "nothing" comes before "something" re: electric/electrical
- A, An, The, El, La, Ein, etc. ignored as first word, unless it's a place (hence El Salvador going with E, but El Topo counting "El" as a "The.") See also The Netherlands, which looks wrong but is right for the purposes of my bitch of an administrator.
- Did not appear here, but "And So It Goes", for instance, would be under the A's, since "And" is not a dropped word for title purposes.

$5000
16th president
An Inconvenient Truth
El Salvador
El Topo
electric eel
electrical discharge
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
Five Guys
The Little Mermaid
The Matrix
The Netherlands
Red XIII
Sixteen Candles
Some Like It Hot
(un)invited

Isquen posted...

I work circ in a library, and our local rules have it go:

This was my list exactly, based on working first at a library and then at a large used book/music/game store, except at the store we would've put the Final Fantasy games in numerical order.

16th president
$5000
El Salvador
electric eel
electrical discharge
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
Five Guys
An Inconvenient Truth
The Little Mermaid
The Matrix
The Netherlands
Red XIII
Sixteen Candles
Some Like it Hot
El Topo
(un)invited

I'm pretty sure the "The" in "The Netherlands" is informal, but I may be wrong (Sporcle standards, mostly). And I always put things in series order regardless of alphabetics, and Roman numerals count the same as 7 or 9. But I mostly agree with Isquen here. Articles - including "An" - don't count and putting "The" under T will just make me presume you don't have it.

Isquen posted...

I work circ in a library, and our local rules have it go:

16th president
$5000
El Salvador
electric eel
electrical discharge
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy VII
Five Guys
An Inconvenient Truth
The Little Mermaid
The Matrix
Red XIII
Sixteen Candles
Some Like it Hot
The Netherlands
El Topo
(un)invited

Reasoning for each:
- punctuation starters ignored
- Numbers come before letters. Spelled out numbers do not count. Smaller numbers before larger, even if letters are attached such as this example.
- Roman numerals are not numbers for the purposes of alphebetizing, which is why in this case ff9 goes before ff7 (dumb)
- "nothing" comes before "something" re: electric/electrical
- A, An, The, El, La, Ein, etc. ignored as first word, unless it's a place (hence El Salvador going with E, but El Topo counting "El" as a "The.") See also The Netherlands, which looks wrong but is right for the purposes of my bitch of an administrator.
- Did not appear here, but "And So It Goes", for instance, would be under the A's, since "And" is not a dropped word for title purposes.

$5000 definitely goes before 16th President because special characters come before "A"

$5000
16th president
An Inconvenient Truth
El Salvador
El Topo
electric eel
electrical discharge
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
Five Guys
The Little Mermaid
The Matrix
The Netherlands
Red XIII
Sixteen Candles
Some Like It Hot
(un)invited

BlueCrystalTear posted...

Articles - including "An" - don't count and putting

For some reason if I were searching for them I would always consider it to be "An Inconvenient Truth", I would never dissociate the "An" for that one even if you realistically could.

Same with "The" Netherlands. No one says I'm going to "The Germany" or "The France", but the "The" feels required for Netherlands and Philippines so I don't think I'd ever not search for it with the the first.

NFUN posted...

$5000 definitely goes before 16th President because special characters come before "A"

So does (un)invited go up there too, then? You're more than welcome to try convincing both my Processing department and my Administration of it.

Isquen posted...

So does (un)invited go up there too, then? You're more than welcome to try convincing both my Processing department and my Administration of it.

no, (Un)invited goes after five guys