How to obtain a description item starting with a capital letter using classicthesis?

Question

Consider following MWE:

\documentclass{report}
\begin{document}
\begin{description}
\item[Apple] apple
\item[\textbf{Apple}] apple
\item[apple] apple
\end{description}
\end{document}

which gives

When using the classicthesis package with following MWE :

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{classicthesis} %<--
\begin{document}
\begin{description}
\item[Apple] apple
\item[\textbf{Apple}] apple
\item[apple] apple
\end{description}
\end{document}

one observes that the capital letter in 'Apple' has been removed and a sc is applied:

This seems to be the expected behaviour, as mentioned in this question.

How can I achieve a normal bf text starting with a capital letter?

• Boldface: using \textbf{} (see second figure)
• Capital letter: ???

Answer 1

You need to use a font that provides the boldface/smallcaps combination. As you've found out, Computer Modern and Latin Modern do not provide such a combination. In contrast, Times Roman does.

Second, you need to override the way LaTeX/classicthesis operate on the argument of \item in a description environment. See below for an example.

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{newtxtext} % or some other font that provides boldface/smallcaps combo
\usepackage{classicthesis} 
\newcommand\mybfsc[1]{\bfseries\scshape\MakeUppercase #1}
\begin{document}
\begin{description}
\item[Apple] rst
\item[\textbf{Apple}] uvw
\item[\textbf{\textsc{\MakeUppercase Apple}}] xyz % the brute-force way
\item[\mybfsc{Apple}] abc % with the help of a utility macro
\end{description}
\end{document}

Answer 2

Of course this goes against the spirit of classicthesis which is never ever use boldface. Anyway, here it is:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{classicthesis}
\renewcommand{\descriptionlabel}[1]{%
  \hspace*{\labelsep}\textbf{#1}%
}
\begin{document}
\begin{description}
\item[Apple] apple
\item[\textbf{Apple}] apple
\item[apple] apple
\end{description}
\end{document}