More about capital letters

More about capital letters

n this second of two parts about the proper use of capital letters, I'll be listing several categories where the question of capitalization applies. I wanted to start off with a quiz just to help you get a better idea of how strong (or weak) you are on capitals, but the post already is too long.

Instead, we'll move right into the categories, listed in no particular order. It is not an exhaustive list, and I'm certain you can think of many other situations where the question looms at to whether or not to capitalize. But we have to stop somewhere, so these are the categories I've chosen to highlight. My final source for resolving disputes or questions 

is  The Associated Press Stylebook, but I'm writing from memory and not trying to copy anything directly from the AP Stylebook unless clearly indicated. (See my previous blog entry, which printed a large portion of AP’s entry on capitalization, especially on what should be considered a proper noun.) I've selected most of the categories because they are the most common sources of errors in stories I have edited. See my previous post for some other common errors.

magazine  – Unless magazine is formally part of the periodical's title (and 95% of the time it is NOT), magazine, contrary to extremely common practice, is lowercased. For example, It's Time magazine, Forbes magazine, InStyle magazine, Playboy magazine, etc. But, the AP Stylebook 

reminds us, it would be    Harper's Magazine. 

I'm not sure I trust this as the way to determine whether to capitalize magazine or not, but one newspaper's internal stylebook says to use this as a guideline: If you don't see the word magazine printed clearly on the cover with the title (as you can see with the Harper's cover above), then it's NOT part of the official title and should be lowercased. So how do we know which magazines DO use magazine in their title? My answer would be our own familiarity with the publication, or it it's something we don't read regularly, I would closely examine the official website of the periodical for further guidance.

governmental bodies – Even reporters who cover politics all the time have a hard time getting it right. What most writers and editors fail to grasp (for those following AP style) is that many bodies get capitalized even without the city or state name when it’s obvious we’re referring to that city, state, county, etc.

For example, in a story with a Boston dateline or that mentions Boston earlier, it’s not necessary to have “Boston” next to it for Police Department, Fire Department, City Council, Department of Public Works  and similar departments to take capital letters when it’s clear that the department is a Boston government entity. In states such as New Jersey and New York, the same thing applies to State Police, which is the official name of the state’s police department. You wouldn’t need “New Jersey” in front of State Police – ever – for it to be capitalized as long as it’s clear you’re referring to the Garden State’s top cops. 

Example: In a high-speed chase that extended through five cities, including Newark, the State Police vehicles in pursuit of a slaying suspect reached speeds of 105 mph, officials confirmed.

* But important to remember is that no official's title – not governor, mayor, president, king,   dictator, senator or anyone else – is uppercased unless it’s in front of the person’s name. He is President Obama, but Obama is the president. He is the mayor, not the Mayor, of Seattle. About the only exception would be instances in which the title is used as a name itself, such as this case: “Mister Mayor, we hereby proclaim this Jody Dody Day!”

* Legislature is another word very frequently written incorrectly. In states where that is the name of the governmental body, you always uppercase it. Again, you don’t need (and it often would be redundant to do so) the name of the state. It’s the Legislature in a story dealing with political matters in Albany, not “the state Legislature” or the “New York Legislature.” Same thing with Senate: Whether it’s the state version or the U.S. one, you should always capitalize it. It’s a Senate committee and a vote by the U.S. Senate.

directions and regions – We’re referring to words like east, west, south, western, southern, etc. When are they uppercased? It’s not always clear. Some guidelines:

   * Compass directions    always get lowercased. He headed west, then traveled south. The compass points to the north. The school is 50 miles north of Boston.

   * Regions often but not always call for capital letters. New York is in the East/Northeast, is on the East Coast and is part of the Eastern Seaboard. The South is a region where the Baptist religion is strong. There is a constant fear of tsunamis along the West Coast. John Mellencamp is a proud Midwesterner. The North defeated the South in the Civil War. Other uses depend on whether the area is a widely known region/entity in itself worthy of capitalization. For example, southern New Hampshire does NOT enjoy such a distinction and as such  “southern” would be lowercased. But Southern California is a region commonly known and passes the test as an entity worthy of capitalization even though there is no official government body with such a name. Some other regions that would take capitals include the South Side (of Chicago, where bad, bad Leroy Brown   lives!), the East Side (in Manhattan), West Texas, South Florida, the Demilitarized Zone (the area between North and South Korea), the Far East, the Middle East and much more.

   * Western has many uses. In reference to country music, AP says to lowercase. For films and books (such as a book about the Wild West of the 1870s), AP says to uppercase Western. The region that consists of the U.S., most of Europe and other mostly democratic civilizations in the Western Hemisphere (names of the four hemispheres are uppercased, by the way) is known collectively as the West (think also Western civilization), such as the Soviet Union opposed the West during the Cold War. But it would be the western United States as it’s not a formal entity or widely known region like Southern California but rather just a description of a particular area.

  *   For compass points, capitalize when it’s a formal part of the title: North Dakota, West Virginia. But general references to a geographic region (again, unless some widely recognized entity like the East Coast, the North Pole, etc.) are lowercased: southern Georgia, northwestern Boston, eastern Michigan.

food – Another source of confusion for many. Perhaps the most common is    champagne/Champagne. If a sparkling wine comes from the region of Champagne, France, it would take a capital C as derivative of a formal name (Champagne the region). But how does an editor reading a story know where the wine comes from? To be safe, I would lowercase champagne unless you specifically know it came from Champagne.

The same concept used for uppercasing the C in Champagne would apply to most other food names. If part of the name derives from a region, you would capitalize the associated word: Roquefort cheese (comes from the region of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in France), Brussels sprouts (from Brussels, Belgium), Danish pastry (originating in Denmark), Chinese food, French bread, Canadian bacon, chicken Parmesan (Parmesan being the English version of the cheese Parmigiano-Reggiano, which Wikipedia says is named after the several producing areas in Italy)  and so on.

However, a few words have completely evolved into their own distinct identity separate from the derivative – hence, even though they are named after the German cities of Frankfurt and Hamburg, where they originated, in English we lowercase the words hamburger and frankfurter. AP also says to lowercase the french in french fries, insisting that it refers to the style of cut and not France.

racial identity – Usually does not take capitals. Not to be confused with ethnic identity, which derives from a proper noun. For example, he checked off white on the application. Nearly two-thirds of all black teens in the city enrolled in the program. But they are Italian (being from Italy), he is an African-American and she is Hispanic, with the last two phrases being categories of ethnicity (African, as in a person from Africa) or nationality (Hispanic describes people whose ethnic origin/language can be traced to the Latin hispanicus and the related word Hispania to describe the    Iberian Peninsula, which consists of Spain and Portugal). Also capitalize religious categories (he is Jewish and she is Catholic), tribes (His Navajo roots helped him get the job) and peoples (the Scandinavians are known for their hospitality).

Mass – Uppercase in all uses when referring to religious services, AP says. I’ve never seen a convincing argument for this, but I dutifully abide by it. By the way, Mass is celebrated or offered, never said or held.

Realtor – Another common error. It should be capitalized, AP insists, because a Realtor is a member of the National Association of Realtors. Still not sure why it deserves being capitalized by itself. You are a member of the U.S. Senate, another formal group, but are still a senator (lowercase) by itself. But that’s AP’s stance. 

manager, general manager, coach – Although one could make a convincing argument that these are formal titles, AP treats them more as job descriptions and lowercases them even before the name of a person. It’s general manager Brian Cashman, manager Joe Girardi and head coach Andy Reid. Many publications treat commissioner the same way and always lowercase it, but AP says to uppercase it immediately before a name as a formal title. So it’s NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, but the commissioner of baseball is Bud Selig.

ice age – It does not take capitals   because there were many so-called periods of extreme cold.

disease and syndrome – Both words nearly always are lowercased when part of the name of a malady: Alzheimer’s disease, Asperger’s sydrome, Down syndrome, Legionnaires' disease, Parkinson’s disease, carpel tunnel syndrome, etc.

compositions – This is taken directly from the AP Stylebook: Capitalize the principal words in the names of books, movies, plays, poems, operas, songs, radio and television programs, works of art, etc.

after a colon: Capitalize the first word, like this, if the portion after the colon constitutes a complete thought or independent phrase or clause that could stand on its own as a sentence. If it’s not, lowercase the first word.

   Some colon examples:

   Here’s the final test: Go and bring me the head of Willie  Boy!

  He lacked just one thing: the ability to see her point of view.

  This was his answer: a thousand times no.

  I’ll tell you this much: You have exceeded my expectations already.

  Here’s how he it was time to go: when he heard the trumpets play.

press secretary, national security adviser – These are considered more as job descriptions than formal titles and as such are never capitalized, AP says.

historical periods and events – From the AP Stylebook: Capitalize the names of widely recognized epochs in anthropology, archaeology, geology and history: the Bronze 

Age, the Dark Ages,   the Middle Ages, the Pliocene Epoch. Capitalize also widely recognized popular names for the periods and events: the Atomic Age, the Boston Tea Party, the Civil War, the Exodus (of the Israelites from Egypt), the Great Depression, Prohibition. But capitalize only the proper nouns or adjectives in general descriptions of a period: ancient Greece, classical Rome, the Victorian era, the fall of Rome.

century – lowercase century, as in the 18th century.

flip-flopped names – The wording and order do not have to be exact. You can write State Department for Department of State, for example, and retain the capitalization.

generic equivalents – From the AP Stylebook: If a generic term has become the equivalent of a proper name in popular use, treat it as a proper name: Walpole State Prison, for example, even though the proper name is the Massachusetts Correctional Institute-Walpole. 

second references – Some popular places or events still get capitalized even in shortened form on subsequent references. Some examples: the Tour (for Tour de France), the Derby (Kentucky Derby), the Stadium (Yankee Stadium), the Garden (Madison Square Garden), the Series (World Series), etc.

 

the – Usually is lowercased in titles such as    the Beatles, the Who, the Great Depression, the Civil War, the Holocaust, the World Series, etc.

	It's time to wrap it up. My next post will focus on while and although, words that should not be used interchangeably. Stay tuned ...

When to use capital letters

When to use capital letters 

 

hen I glanced at The Associated Press Stylebook entry on capitalization, I recalled just how much there is to cover when it comes to the subject. Therefore, I am devoting two posts to capitals and hope they help erase most of the confusion that seems to prevail on when to use capital letters. I can't cover every possible scenario, but this should provide most of the guidelines anyone would need.

The biggest reason for the confusion, I would contend, is what I have dubbed Parrot's Disease, that highly questionable practice of simply copying what we are used to seeing without questioning its accuracy/validity. It seems to apply for this theme more than any other I have written about so far, so this reminder is in order:

PARROT'S DISEASE:  

  Be skeptical and look things up to be sure! Do not trust myths and rumors or repeat things you have seen or heard, no matter how common. This is how such atrocious writing as the examples cited becomes so common. Be uncommon and be sure something you write is correct. Don't just parrot what you read and hear!

Because there is so much to consider when it comes to capital letters, today's post will focus mostly on common errors.

Before I go any further, I want to remind anyone reading this of the great gift we all have been given while on this Earth: choice. Free agency. The right to choose. You have decided for yourself to read this. No one forced you. No gun was put to your head. If you don't like what you read, that's certainly your right. You also have the right to express that displeasure by leaving a comment. But I would hope you would be mature and reasonable enough to focus on the content of the blog and refrain from    childish personal attacks. 

I knew some readers would disagree with things I write but had no idea they'd ridicule me just for writing a blog in the first place. One peevish whiner scolded me and told me to stop sending her spam, as if I personally sent my blog right to her inbox against her wishes. Another objected to the blog on the grounds that it "didn't reinvent the wheel," as if every last communication from one person to another had to consist solely of original ideas. Still another called it a total waste of time, reminding me that "we all took the same courses" or something like that -- as if everyone already knew everything I was saying and was perfect in his or her writing and editing.

Anyone who could possibly reach that conclusion either has never done editing for a major publication or is doing a totally abysmal job of it. All errors I point out are based on ones I spot dozens of times every day while editing, errors    prevalent in articles done by local reporters as well as stories sent on news wires such as AP. I have been an editor for more than 25 years, more than half of that time at some of the biggest daily publications in the nation. I have edited -- and written headlines for -- more than 100,000 articles. I have been in the newsroom on Election Day during the past seven presidential elections. I've worked for newspapers in all four time zones in the continental U.S. I've worked in Mexico City and Europe. I've served as copy editor, editor, sports editor, layout editor, bureau editor, sports reporter and a lot more. I don't think it's boasting at all to say such experience qualifies me to say I am an expert wordsmith who has been exposed to thousands of very common errors in writing.

My goal in writing this blog, of course, as it is with most writers, is to help advance my professional career. But it is also to help others improve their writing and editing by pointing out the mistakes I have seen during 25 years on the job and offering some insight on how to do better. If somehow you find that objectionable, DON'T READ MY BLOG! No one's making you. If you object to my announcing my latest post with a LinkedIn group you belong to, try using your spam filter. But I'm hoping you'll try to be understanding and not blame me or any writer for wanting to promote his/her work and things he/she is passionate about. I'm not hustling you or anyone for money or a job or anything, and I have no ads on the blog to pester you. Thank you.


Back to capitals:

Just because you've seen it capitalized doesn't make it accurate. There has to be a logical, legitimate reason for using a capital letter -- some obvious ones being a word that is a proper noun such as the name of a person, business or place.

It's worth reading part of the    AP Stylebook's entry on capitalization for further clarification on proper nouns. But if you'd rather skip it, it ends right before "Here are some examples":

In general, avoid unnecessary capitals. Use a capital letter only if you can justify it by one of the principles listed here.

Many words and phrases, including special cases, are listed separately in this book. Entries that are capitalized without further comment should be capitalized in all uses.

If there is no relevant listing in this book for a particular word or phrase, consult Webster's New World College Dictionary. Use lowercase if the dictionary lists it as an acceptable form for the sense in which the word is being used.

Some basic principles:

PROPER NOUNS: Capitalize nouns that constitute the unique identification for a specific person, place, or thing: John, Mary, America, Boston, England.

Some words, such as the examples just given, are always proper nouns. Some common nouns receive proper noun status when they are used as the name of a particular entity: General Electric, Gulf Oil.

PROPER NAMES: Capitalize common nouns such as party, river, street and west when they are an integral part of the full name for a person, place or thing: Democratic Party, Mississippi River, Fleet Street, West Virginia.

Lowercase these common nouns when they stand alone in subsequent references: the party, the river, the street.

Lowercase the common noun elements of names in plural uses: the Democratic and Republican parties, Main and State streets, lakes Erie and Ontario. Exception: plurals of formal titles with full names are capitalized: Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald R. Ford.

POPULAR NAMES: Some places and events lack officially designated proper names but have popular names that are the effective equivalent: the Combat Zone (a section of downtown Boston), the Main Line (a group of Philadelphia suburbs), the South Side (of Chicago), the Badlands (of South Dakota), the Street (the financial community in the Wall Street area of New York).

The principle applies also to shortened versions of the proper names of one-of-a-kind events: the Series (for the World Series), the Derby (for the Kentucky Derby). This practice should not, however, be interpreted as a license to ignore the general practice of lowercasing the common noun elements of a name when they stand alone.

DERIVATIVES: Capitalize words that are derived from a proper noun and still depend on it for their meaning: American, Christian, Christianity, English, French, Marxism, Shakespearean.

Lowercase words that are derived from a proper noun but no longer depend on it for their meaning: french fries, herculean, malapropism, pasteurize, quixotic, venetian blind.

 

Here are some frequent examples of words that often get capitalized for no valid reason:

1) From Day One, he figured it was best to lie his way to the top.  

Extremely common, yet always wrong. What about day or one in any possible way makes either word a proper noun worth capitalizing? The answer is nothing. It should be day one. This also applies to these phrases, which are especially prevalent in sports stories: week one (not Week 1) of a season, opening day (the first day of the Major League Baseball regular season being the lone exception, according to AP), game two (not Game 2) of the series and season three (not Season 3) of "The Sopranos." There is absolutely nothing about week, game or season, for example, that makes those words proper nouns. It's nothing more than Parrot's Disease.

2) The Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops were     dinosaurs who ruled the Earth for centuries. 

Why should these animals deserve a special stature given no other species? You don't write Rabbit, Deer, Bear, Dog, etc. Why should dinosaurs be any different just because the names look a little fancier? The only time any part of an animal's name should be capitalized is when that part comes from a proper noun in the first place, such as an Irish setter, Labrador retriever or Rhode Island red.

3) They revered the Moon and the Sun as gods and offered human sacrifices to them in the hopes of going to Heaven and not Hell. 

One might argue that all four words in question are specific places deserving of proper noun status, but AP and many dictionaries say otherwise. I would think of them more as descriptive, generic phrases than formal titles, the way mountain, river, ocean and forest describe a location but by themselves merit no capital letters. There are, for example, other moons that orbit other planets, and other stars qualify as suns. Hell might be considered a generic description for an unpleasant place in the afterlife, whereas Hades gets capitalized as a specific proper name given to that location.  Same with the devil, a generic reference to the entity that controls hell, whereas Satan is a proper name given to such an entity.


4) He wanted to have plenty of Euros    for his trip, so he exchanged all his Dollars.

Money/currency never gets capitalized unless beginning a sentence (or independent phrase after a colon). You would never capitalize pesos, pennies, cents, nickels, dimes, quarters and so on, so euros and dollars are no different.

5) He earned a Bachelor's Degree in History. 

All the highlighted words are generic references. There is nothing proper about them that would elevate them to the status of being capitalized. Take each word by itself, bachelor's, degree and history. I hope you would agree all have frequent generic uses. Why would it be any different here? Whether the subject is history or math or philosophy or journalism, there is no valid reason for capitalizing it nor the degree earned in that subject. 




6) He was staying in Room 222 at the hotel. 

Room occasionally can be part of a formal name when the last word of a phrase, such as the Van Gogh Room in the museum. But by itself, as you see here, it would be merely a formal description, the way you would describe your kitchen or bedroom. Having a number attached to the room doesn't change that one bit. Same thing with suite. About the only exception would be in listing a formal address, such as 123 East 21st St., Suite 222, New York, NY 10001.

7) He is a Public Relations Specialist. His colleague is a Computer Programmer who once worked as a Senior Vice President for Marketing. 

The above examples are all job descriptions, which always are lowercased, or titles, which are uppercased only before the name of the person. For example, computer programmer would be lowercased alone or in front of a person's name. Vice President, a formal title, would be capitalized in such a wording as Vice President Al Gore won the debate but lowercased in a sentence like He is the vice president of the company.


8) Among the dignitaries at the parade were the Governor, Mayor, President and     Dean.  

All titles (other than a few titles that royalty assume that in essence become their actual public name, such as the Duchess of Windsor) are lowercased unless in front of a person's name. So these would all be lowercased as shown. But you would write: New Orleans Mayor Dean Jackson invited Gov. Bill Bones and President Obama to give speeches.

9)  He likes his Mom a lot more than he likes his Dad.

Lowercase when referring to someone as the person occupying a certain role, such as he is my father or her mother died. But uppercase when that title becomes the substitute for a name and the way in which the person is identified: I love my mother ... but I love you, Mother. He told his father, "I will miss you, Dad, but I will be back soon."

10) Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, all ya gotta do is call ...

Unless they are the first words of a sentence, seasons are never capitalized and are merely winter, spring, summer and fall in all uses. 
 

There are many other examples, but it's time to wrap it up. My next post also will focus on capitals and will offer specific guidelines for such use in such categories as titles, seasons, historical periods, food, plants, religious references, governmental bodies, directions and regions, family names, etc. Stay tuned ...  

 

 

Eh too, Brute?

Eh TOO, Brute?

 

    Just how much is TOO much?  

That's the biggest problem with using too in such a construction: You are quantifying something that often is subjective and can't be classified/measured with a simple list.

TOO in this case should suggest crossing a certain boundary, as in more than one can manage, more than one can bear, more than is acceptable or appropriate. 

In some cases, using too is perfectly appropriate and obvious because you CAN quantify the thing in question. Some examples:

1) The police officer stopped the driver for driving too fast -- 50 mph on a street with a posted speed limit of 35 mph -- and wrote him a ticket. Any speed of 36 mph and above on that street correctly can be called too fast because it exceeds what the law has deemed appropriate.

2) The storm proved too much for the tree,    toppling it right onto the roof of the home. The storm's effects passed the point at which the tree could endure it, and the tree was unable to keep from falling over. The storm definitely was too much for the tree to withstand.

3) She was too loud and got thrown out of the cafe by the owner when she refused to quiet down. The customer crossed the line of acceptable behavior and exceeded the acceptable level of noise. Although you might not be able to quantify it in a numerical manner, you clearly can quantify it in the sense that a certain amount of noise -- shouting as loudly as you can, for example -- definitely exceeds the proper level of noise a customer is permitted to make while inside the restaurant. 

4) If you let yourself get too tired while behind the wheel, you might fall asleep and find yourself in a life-threatening situation. The level here is definitely measurable -- becoming too tired in this case results in the driver losing consciousness.

5) He was disciplined too many times and wound up getting expelled.    Here we realize there was a definite point at which the school considered the transgressions excessive and unacceptable, and once the person exceeded that point he was thrown out of the school. 

Many other too constructions, however, have no such quantifiable or measurable means of making such a determination and thus end up being wrong because they apply an objective measure to something entirely subjective. 

What do I mean? Here are some examples in which too is simply wrong, no matter how many thousands of times you have seen it that way:

1) It shouldn't take him too long to do his chores. Unless he's racing the clock, with some ironclad deadline to get the work done or face some kind of meaningful consequence (punishment, eviction, death, imprisonment), there's simply no amount of time that constitutes too much here. In other words, no one can objectively state that any certain time span passes over into too long because we have given no measurable time frame in which to judge.

What we should write instead of too in this and hundreds of constructions is very. That is the point of today's lesson.

2) I wouldn't be too worried about the lack of rain this week. Again, who is to say at what point worrying becomes too much? The answer is no one. The writer should recast it as very worried.

3) You can play in the yard but don't go too far. There might seem to be an obvious distance that constitutes being too far, but the speaker has not specified it, so we really mean very far, not too far. You have no way of knowing just how far is too far here. Ten feet from the door? Twenty feet? We don't know.

4) They weren't too far into the movie   when the power suddenly went out inside the theater. There's absolutely no objective point in the movie that anyone can agree was too far in this case. We simply should say very far to indicate that the film had been running for a short time (perhaps only a few minutes, certainly less than half of its running time) when it was stopped because of a power failure.  

5) I'm not doing too well in that class. Is it even possible to do too well in a class? Of course not. Getting a perfect score is wonderful and a great goal but certainly never could be considered doing too well by any reasonable person. The student obviously means he's not doing very well, that he is struggling.

This again goes back to what I have mentioned from the beginning of this blog back in May: Parrot's Disease. Here is another reminder:  

PARROT'S DISEASE:  

  Be skeptical and look things up to be sure! Do not trust myths and rumors or repeat things you have seen or heard, no matter how common. This is how such atrocious writing as the examples cited becomes so common. Be uncommon and be sure something you write is correct. Don't just parrot what you read and hear!

 

 

It's time to wrap it up.
 

My next post will deal with the puzzling Abuse of Capital letters in Stories. Let's hope You are Not one Of those writers Who is guilty of Such a Transgression. Stay tuned ...