Here's what the Associated Press Stylebook says: Capitalize as part of a proper name: the Mississippi River Lowercase in other uses: the Mississippi and Missouri rivers
Hope this helps Pedram Rowhani ________________________________________ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Hanno Murphy [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 5:07 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Fwd: Re: [ECOLOG-L] to Capitalize or not to capitalize I agree with Mike. While you can make a reasonable argument for either choice and neither would be strictly wrong, treating rivers as a common noun is the better choice. 1) if you choose to capitalize "rivers" you loose parity, which forces the reader to slow down and think. 2) Capitalizing "rivers" implies that the phrase "Narraguagus and Penobscot Rivers" is functioning sort of like a single noun, which unless the rivers are always or nearly always mentioned as a pair, this is really not the case. 3) I googled "tigress and euphrates rivers" assuming that this pairing was more famous and commonly used, and nearly all results came back with "Tigress and Euphrates rivers." While there were only a few high-quality, edited sources, they consistently used "rivers" as a common noun. One thing to remember with English style is that while you can break stylistic rules and even grammar rules for rhetorical purposes to change emphasis or meaning, you should have a clear understanding of what the precedent is and what your choices will do. If you're unsure, look for a similar example in a few professionally edited sources or grab a style guide. (In this instance, I checked my grammar text and the APA style guide and found nothing.) -Hanno ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mike Marsh <[email protected]> Date: Oct 1, 2009 12:30pm Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] to Capitalize or not to capitalize To: [email protected] CC: > 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: > 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, eg, Penobscot River, Penobscot County. Many > "up" style adherents would also capitalize the proper names of species, > eg, 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, eg, 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, eg, 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
