Capitals - to use or not to use?

aliceshortcake · Nov 17, 2011

Folks, I would appreciate your help here. Pray cast your eyes over the following sentences:

She was taken to the casualty department of the local hospital.

He specialised in reptile studies as a third year option in his zoology degree.

Now, in the first sentence I'd be tempted to capitalise the initial letters of 'casualty department'. In the second I'd do the same for 'reptile studies', 'third year' and 'zoology'. Is this correct?

Thanks!

dpaterso · Nov 17, 2011

Let me just see...

Yeah, that's how I automatically typed those sentences, with the same words capitalized.

-Derek

The Lonely One · Nov 17, 2011

A quick google found this site. Pretty much answers all your questions.

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/understanding-capitalization.aspx

And is actually quite interesting and informative. I will give it a read-through as well.

Sam Best · Nov 17, 2011

The Lonely One said:
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/understanding-capitalization.aspx

Cool article, thanks for sharing. The summation is at the bottom:

Article said:
So here’s the Quick and Dirty Tip on random or vanity capitalization: don’t.

Save uppercase for conventional uses such as a proper name or one of Plato’s lofty ideals – or for nouns if you happen to be writing in German. (In that case, maybe you should look for Grammatik Fräulein instead of Grammar Girl.)

When in doubt, look up a word to see whether its meaning varies depending on capitalization. If it does, and you really need to have it lowercase for clarity’s sake, do what you can to ensure that it doesn’t start your sentence. It would be capitalized there, of course, so its mere placement might undermine your intent.

It sounds like more of a guideline, but for aliceshortcake's examples I would follow it.

FennelGiraffe · Nov 17, 2011

It depends on whether those are actual titles. If that hospital officially refers to it as the Casualty Department, it should be capitalized. But if it's actually titled something else and people just call it that, then no.

jaksen · Nov 17, 2011

If you were writing in German, you'd capitalize every noun.

In American English, I'd write the second sentence thus:

He specialized in Reptile Studies as a third year option in his zoology degree.

That's because "Reptile Studies" sounds like a formal course of study, with its own department, publications, specialists, and so on. I don't know what a third year option is, but I don't think I'd capitalize it, and neither would I capitalize zoology degree.

I have a biology degree, btw. Only when writing it Bachelor of Arts, Biology, would I capitalize it.

The Lonely One · Nov 17, 2011

Tempo said:
Cool article, thanks for sharing. The summation is at the bottom:

It sounds like more of a guideline, but for aliceshortcake's examples I would follow it.

Of course the "don't use vanity capitalization" sounds more like a non-fiction suggestion to me (though I haven't read all the way through the article).

Take, for instance, e.e. cummings who doesn't even capitalize his own name at times (though the official spelling is often debated), and otherwise capitalizes at will. Really depends on the intent and style of the writing.

Capitals - to use or not to use?

aliceshortcake

Wilde about Oscar

dpaterso

Patent pending

The Lonely One

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Sam Best

New Fish

FennelGiraffe

It's green they say

jaksen

Caped Codder

The Lonely One

Why is a raven like a writing desk?