Capitalisation of pet names, commas

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awaitingthemuse

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Should pet names like sweetie, darling be capitalised? I am thinking yes but just thought I would check.

Does anyone have good reference for British grammar?

TIA
atm
 

rich

Just in case: you're not saying that the pet names are Sweetie, Darling; you're saying that the name of your dogs are Fido and Poochie but you refer to them a lot by calling them sweetie, darling.
 

awaitingthemuse

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Sorry, I wasn't clear on my use of pet names. I mean pet names to mean the name you'd give a person - spouse, girlfriend.
 

veronie

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BTW, if you want to know the reasoning behind this: Pet names (not names of pets, but labels like sweety, honey, etc.) don't rise to the level of proper nouns. They are more of adjectives. It's like if I grabbed a hot apple pie, put it under my nose, and said, "Helloooo, delicious." I'm not giving the apple pie a proper-noun-type name. It's more a description — an adjective.
 

reph

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If the pet name is specific to the person, it amounts to a nickname. You capitalize it, even if it isn't in direct address. "As I was telling Birdie this morning..."

Then there's "meeting Mr. Right." This gets caps because "Mr. anything" gets caps.

If the word is generic, no. You don't capitalize the epithet in "Welcome home, dear" any more than you capitalize it in "You cut me off in traffic, assh0le."

(Deliberate misspelling to sneak past the word censor.)
 

punstress

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"Can you do me a favor, honey?"

"Can you do me a favor, Honey?"

"Listen, baby, I can't come over tonight."

"Listen, Baby, I can't come over tonight."

Had to see those written down to be sure ... definitely lower case!
 

Maryn

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reph said:
If the pet name is specific to the person, it amounts to a nickname. You capitalize it, even if it isn't in direct address. "As I was telling Birdie this morning..."

Then there's "meeting Mr. Right." This gets caps because "Mr. anything" gets caps.

If the word is generic, no. You don't capitalize the epithet in "Welcome home, dear" any more than you capitalize it in "You cut me off in traffic, assh0le."

(Deliberate misspelling to sneak past the word censor.)
I concur, although as usual I bow to reph's greater experience. In our house we have lots of pet names that are person-specific, which we treat like actual names when we write them down. (Often, now that the kids are away from home.) So it's Good morning, Tomato Head or Did you get the package with the shampoo, Ummels? When we call one another by affectionate or disparaging terms the whole rest of the world uses, lower case all the way.

Thanks for clarifying, reph!

Maryn, whose name today appears to be Hamburger Base once again (sigh)
 

Jamesaritchie

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punstress said:
"Can you do me a favor, honey?"

"Can you do me a favor, Honey?"

"Listen, baby, I can't come over tonight."

"Listen, Baby, I can't come over tonight."

Had to see those written down to be sure ... definitely lower case!


This is right, unless everyone calls the person "Honey" or "Baby." I have known a couple of women who gained the nickname "Honey."
 
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