Another capitalization question

Adagio · Dec 13, 2009

In the dialog between two characters, in my WIP, one calls the other "silly." "It's not rubbish, silly!" Someone told me that "silly" should be capitalized. Is it true? I understand that, say, Mother should be capitalized when it's not accompanied by "my," or "her." But how about name-calling?

Thank you,

Adagio

alleycat · Dec 13, 2009

No, it shouldn't be capitalized.

absitinvidia · Dec 13, 2009

It's lowercased. Per the Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition), "Pet names are always lowercased."

Their example is: "Sorry, sweetheart."

While "silly" isn't being used quite the same way in your example, I think it's closer in usage to "sweetheart" than it would be to "Mother."

Adagio · Dec 13, 2009

Thank you very much, absitinvidia and alleycat!

But "Mother" should be in upper case in: "Don't talk to me like this, Mother!" Right? Truth is, I saw both ways. My understanding is that it should be capitalized.

Adagio

absitinvidia · Dec 13, 2009

Adagio said:
Thank you very much, absitinvidia and alleycat!

But "Mother" should be in upper case in: "Don't talk to me like this, Mother!" Right? Truth is, I saw both ways. My understanding is that it should be capitalized.

Adagio

Yes, "Mother" is capitalized properly in your example

Sam M · Dec 14, 2009

"Mother", in that case, is a title. Titles are capitalised. For instance: Doctor Johnson, Professor Williams, et cetera. But "silly" is just, as another poster has mentioned, a pet name.

Adagio · Dec 14, 2009

Absitinvidia and Sam M, thank you. It didn't seem right to me to cap'ed "silly" but I've been corrected, and I wanted to learn.

Adagio

Another capitalization question

Adagio

alleycat

Still around

absitinvidia

A bit of a wallflower

Adagio

absitinvidia

A bit of a wallflower

Sam M

Adagio