It did not appear to me that Warren addressed the issue posed. Michael
Cooperman asked a question that frequently give me pause. What if we
analyze by parts of speech. Then "Narraguagus would be a proper noun,
but in "Narraguagus and Penobscot rivers", isn't "rivers", a common
noun, modified by "Narraguagus" and "Penobscot"?
Mike
-----------------
Warren W. Aney wrote:
<pre wrap>In my journalism and technical writing classes I learned
there are two
accepted styles for capitalization: An "up" style and a "down" style. In
the "up" style you would capitalize river, lake, stream, county, etc. if
it's part of the proper name, e.g., Penobscot River, Penobscot
County. Many
"up" style adherents would also capitalize the proper names of species,
e.g., Mule Deer.
In the "down" style you would be very stingy with capitalizations. So you
would write Narraguagus river and mule deer.
And then ornithologists have a policy of always capitalizing bird species
names, but since I always write in the "down" style I tend to ignore that
policy for the sake of consistency, e.g., Canada geese and pileated
woodpecker.
Some newspapers write in the "down" style but most in the "up" style
-- and
as you've probably noted, MSWord spellcheck keeps nagging you to use the
"up" style.
You can also mix styles, e.g., write about Atlantic salmon in the
Penobscot
River. That's part of the frustration (or beauty) of writing -- it's
an art
and not a science.
Warren W. Aney
Senior Wildlife Ecologist
9403 SW 74th Ave
Tigard, OR 97223
(503) 246-8613 phone
(503) 246-2605 fax
(503) 539-1009 mobile
[email protected]
-----Original Message-----
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael Cooperman
Sent: Wednesday, 30 September, 2009 11:19
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] to Capitalize or not to capitalize
In the following statement: ....the Narraguagus and Penobscot
rivers....should the word "rivers" be capitalized? I have my opinion,
but in the spirit of not biasing responses I'll keep it to myself; my
office as a whole is split 50/50. One way or the other, half the people
in my office are wrong!
Michael
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