"Babe" - Capitalized or Not?

If you can substitute "hottie", then lower case. Sorry if it's perceived as a sexist statement, just making the association for grammatical demonstration.

How is that not a proper noun? Someone is using it to address a person.

If you're using it in place of a name, then capitalize it, just as you would capitalize their name if you were using it instead, e.g. "Can we watch TV now, Mom?"

If you're using it as a description of the person's role, then don't capitalize it, e.g. "Sorry, but my mom said we can't watch TV."

Apply to "Babe" exactly the same way. In your sentence above, it would be capitalized, because it's used instead of their name.

Grammar Girl (and just about every other resource I can find) seem to agree that terms of endearment aren't capitalized. Nicknames or stand-in names (a la "Mom") should be though.

Grammar Girl said:

Nicknames are different from terms of endearment, however. Terms of endearment aren’t capitalized. For example, let’s say you call your husband "honey." You might walk in the door and say “Honey, I’m home,” but you wouldn’t call your sister and say, “When I got home, honey was already making dinner. What a guy!”

A term of endearment isn’t interchangeable with a name the same way a nickname is, and terms of endearment aren’t capitalized.

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From CMoS:

Chicago’s preferred style has always been to lowercase pet names, but you can’t go wrong unless you’re inconsistent, since the issue is guided by preference rather than rule.

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For me, if a character says, "Hey, baby, what's for dinner?" it's a lower-case endearment. OTOH, if that character happens to be in Dirty Dancing and the person he's speaking to is universally known by their nickname, it'd be: "Hey, Baby, who put you in that corner?"

I would say lower case - I can see replacing 'babe' with things like 'mate', 'dude', 'love', depending on the relationship, and all of those I would make lower case.

cmhbob said:

It's not a proper name, just a term of endearment. I think in those cases, it's lower-case. My beta reader keeps flagging it.

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Your beta reader is wrong. Terms of endearment are not capitalized. You would only capitalize it if that was the actual name everyone calls her (i.e., a nickname). Otherwise, it's in the same category as "dear, honey, sweetheart," etc., none of which would be capitalized.

cmhbob said:

Here's one sentence:



It's not a proper name, just a term of endearment. My beta reader keeps flagging it.

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Casual, impersonal references like this aren't proper names. Now if this character has a habit of assigning such, and uses particular terms of endearment (or sarcastic monikers) persistently to refer to specific people, then it would attain the status of a true nickname, imo. I'm guessing this isn't the case in your story, though.

It's taking the place of a name. so Capital. This includes terms of endearment.

Now if it's used as an adjective:

'You're a real babe Toots."

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Then it's common.

The rules for this are a little loose. When in doubt, consult your editor.

The more important thing is consistency.

Capitalize it. You're using it to replace a proper noun, which means it become a proper noun.

If it is used in place of a name, then it gets a capital.

BethS said:

Your beta reader is wrong. Terms of endearment are not capitalized.

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For US publications, Beth (and CBJason, BeFrank, Roxxsmom) are correct.

Some UK styles go with a very old school practice to capitalize all forms of address. Your beta reader still attends that school.