A wonderful woman sent along a timely gift last week: a guide to capital letters (proper nouns) and spelling. I say timely because I was right in the middle of an editing job (and several conversations about the loss of the English language) when the book arrived.
I know how difficult it all is. Grammar, syntax, spelling, pronunciation...I make mistakes every day. All I have to do is look at this blog if I need to find errors.
Still, usage of proper nouns ought to be considered elementary, and I am therefore going to attack some of that usage here.
Class, let us begin.
If a noun names a person, place, thing (and so on...because this is, these are, not all a noun names), then a proper noun names a specific person, place, thing (and so on), and, of course, the proper noun always begins with a capital, or upper case, letter.
From Wikipedia: "Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Jupiter or Johnny), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, planet or person). Proper nouns are not normally preceded by an article or other limiting modifier (such as "any" or "some"), and are used to denote a particular person, place, or thing without regard to any descriptive meaning the word or phrase may have. ... In English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, proper nouns are usually capitalized."
I can easily make South American students (because capitalizing common nouns seems to be a national pastime) laugh when I try to elucidate: I was so in Love and I couldn't stop my Heart from beating so fast that I thought it would Break if She could not Love me back. And lo and behold should the assignment be hand-written, the capital letters spanning several horizontal lines as they reach passionately toward the top of the page.
The funny thing is, when South American students write this way, it almost always involves their hearts. When Anglophones write this way, it almost always involves their wallets (as in status and ego and feeling just a little bit special) (or is that Special?) It never behooves anyone to try and boast in this way, and even arrogant or rich or misguided people can learn by remembering that less is, truly, often more. (Think of bright blue eye shadow from the 1960s, and you'll see what I mean.)
Here are some examples of in/correct usage of proper nouns:
The actress, Spring Byington, was a hearty woman and not I love the warm weather of Spring.
They named the baby Joy and not Their hearts were filled with Joy.
Ottawa District School Board and not Ottawa School Board (lower the S & B in the second example) * The same is true for Board of Trade/the board; Treasury Board/the board...and so on.
My grammie won a Grammy and not My Grammie won a Grammy.
President Barack Obama said... and not The President said...
She shops at the Gap and not She has a big Gap in her heart/her teeth since her boyfriend left her.
John McCain was a prisoner of war (PoW) and not John McCain was a Prisoner of War (POW).
Send me a fax, please and not Send me a FAX. (This one is new to me, which shows you how old I am.)
And if you really care (and even if you don't), some become even trickier:
Second World War and not World War II
Old Boys (*no apostrophe) network and not bunch of assholes
House of Commons but not Toronto City Council
the Governor General (Canada) and not the Governor General (elsewhere)
And the list goes on. That's why publishers print books on this subject. No one can possibly know all of the rules. But we can know the simple ones, and we ought to, especially if we wish to live in a world where we understand that communication is key to good health, happiness, equality, honour and kindness.
And that's my two cents worth on the subject of proper nouns.
Oh yes -- and I Love my new Book.
<:^)
