I don't really think those are exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Those examples you cite are arguably proper nouns, or abbreviations of proper nouns, and thus properly capitalized.mynameisdumbnuts wrote:For example, when we refer to the American government, we capitalize Cabinet to differentiate it from the place where you store your bits and pieces. A prevailing media standard set by The Associated Press is to capitalize Founding Fathers for the men who were instrumental in founding the United States;
But why aren't the references to armed forces of other countries short for whatever full names they use? I don't quite get this one.mynameisdumbnuts wrote:... and Army, Navy and Air Force when they refer to the U.S. branches but not those in other countries (the logic is that those are short for the full names of the branches whereas in other countries they might not be and thus are used more generally; it has nothing to do with notions of superiority).
I certainly do agree that words like "Army" or "Navy" can be either capitalized or not, and agree that the determining factor is whether, in that context, they are a generic reference, or are short for the proper noun naming a particular armed force. But I would see this as entirely dependent on the context of the reference, and not relating to the country in question.
Yes, that is a lot closer to the kind of thing I was thinking of. (I've usually seen it with nouns, but sometimes other parts of speech too, such as adjectives or verbs.)mynameisdumbnuts wrote:Advertisements frequently randomly capitalize words and it drives me batty. I suppose it's to highlight the most important words -- "come to the Sale Tomorow!!" but it looks stupid and is bad grammar.
Descriptions of family members or relatives are often wrongly capitalized, as in "I am visiting my Father tomorrow". Wrong - it should be "father": the reference is generic there, even if it is referring to one particular father. But if you change it just a tiny bit, then the capital letter is correct, and even required: "I am visiting Father tomorrow". Here it is a name, which is a proper noun, and it's just as wrong here *not* to capitalize it.
I don't seem to have that problem. Things don't trickle down to me, no matter how common they are, if I am aware they are wrong or illogical or unclear.mynameisdumbnuts wrote:But I think people pick up on that and it trickles down to everyday writing.
I guess that may *explain* it, if not argue that it's correct. The importance of a noun (which may be subjective anyway in some cases) has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is a proper noun or not - with the exception that in highly unusual cases you *may* (especially in poetry) capitalize a noun to stress it or give it an extra dimension. But that's a highly specialized effect, and not really related to the kind of capitalization we're talking about here.mynameisdumbnuts wrote:So someone writing about her cousin reasons the cousin is important to the story and therefore should be capitalized. (I've got nothing on bears and penguins :) )
I don't know who Associated Press are, or what their authority in such things is; but I disagree with this. In that sentence, I would certainly capitalize "queen". And yes, I would capitalize it even standing alone, if it appeared to be short for the name of the person, consisting of their name preceded by the title.mynameisdumbnuts wrote:The rules aren't consistent, which doesn't help. You don't capitalize president or queen when they stand alone, only when they appear in front of a name as a title -- but that doesn't apply to British nobility. So the sentence "In London, President Barack Obama met with the queen and the Duchess of Cambridge" is correct according to Associated Press style although it looks wonky to have some titles capitalized and some not.
There is room for variation, because often a word can be parsed either as (short for) a proper noun or as a generic noun, and make about equal sense either way. "The Queen" in this example is a case in point: it can be seen as either generic (even though clearly referring to a specific queen), or as short for "Queen Elizabeth II", which is undoubtedly a proper noun. But I would in such cases go by the feel of it, and maybe tradition, and, looked at like this, "Queen" by far wins out (in my opinion) over "queen". But I would refer to "queens of England".
Similarly, I would probably write "presidents of the U.S.", or "the president", if it was referring to the office in general, or to unspecified or hypothetical holders of that office; but I would write "the President" if it was referring to Obama (for instance) - even if Obama was not named at all in the passage. It may be generic in that case; but to me it reads better as being short for "President Obama".
(I've occasionally seen variants such as (not beginning a sentence) "The Queen" - capital "T", capital "Q". Not correct: "the" is not capitalized, unless it starts the sentence.)
Regards, Michael.