Capitalization

Q. If etc. falls at the end of a title of a work, should it be capitalized or left lowercased? The argument against capitalization is that the et part of the abbreviation is a conjunction and the c part represents the final word (cetera). No one here argues for etC., of course, but my argument is that once et cetera is abbreviated to etc. the two words become one, so that etc. is therefore the last word, not the last two words, in the headline or title, and that it should be capitalized as Etc.

A. I like your reasoning, especially if the word is important to the title: “Murder Etc.” On the other hand, by reversing your logic you might get away with lowercasing when etc. is an insignificant, tacked-on ending (pace CMOS 8.159): “Schneeweisschean Applications of Jungian Typologies: Dopey, Happy, Bashful, Grumpy, etc.”

[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]