Capital Ideas

German may be a tough language to learn, but they did make it easy on us in one aspect: all nouns are capitalized. You never have to beat your Brain against your Skull wondering whether this Word or that Word needs a capital Letter; if it’s a Noun, you slap a Capital on it.

            In English, regrettably, we have to remember rules. Most of them are pretty simple; anyone can remember that you capitalize the first word in a sentence, the first-person pronoun I, and people’s names.

But the nuances of capital letters can get tricky. Here is a guide to the most common capitalization mistakes and uncertainties for beginning writers.

Product names. Whether or not your publisher wants little trademark (™) symbols embedded in the text, you should always capitalize trademarked brand names. But do not capitalize the product itself: Heinz ketchup, Kraft macaroni and cheese. Unless the product didn’t exist before the company started making it; then you capitalize it however the trademark holder wants it capitalized: 3M Post-Its, Kraft Easy Mac, GM OnStar.

Some brand names have over time lost their capitals to become generic versions of themselves: popsicle, dumpster, thermos. Consult a dictionary to be sure. According to my spell-check, Kleenex, Xerox, and Frisbee are still capitalized, so unless you’re referring specifically to those products, you’ll need to use the generic terms tissue, copy, and flying disc that everyone is going to call a Frisbee even though it’s not made by Wham-O.

And then there’s spam. Spam is a registered trademark of the Hormel corporation, which has vigorously defended the purity (?) of the brand, even to the point of suing over a wild boar named Spa’am in the 1996 movie Muppet Treasure Island. Kermit the Frog won, and it only got worse for Hormel. 1996 or thereabout was when spam, thanks to an obscure Monty Python sketch liking the canned meat product with annoying background noise, gained popularity as an uncapitalized noun and verb meaning unwanted e-mail or the sending thereof. It’s now in the dictionary as such—probably the fastest that a brand name has ever lost its capital.

Dog breeds. Only capitalize proper names and nationalities within the breed name (regardless of where they appear): German shepherd, Jack Russell terrier, Chihuahua, yellow Lab(rador). Otherwise, do not capitalize, even if it’s a foreign word: golden retriever, papillon, wire-haired dachshund, shih tzu.

The Internet. Internet is a proper noun and always capitalized, along with the first word of Web site (a two-word phrase derived from the proper noun World Wide Web).

The word “e-mail” is an abbreviation for “electronic mail.” Since “electronic” is not a proper name, you do not capitalize it.

Times of day (a.m. and p.m.). There are varying standards on this; some publishers don’t mind capitals on the abbreviations for ante meridian and prime meridian. But generally you can’t go wrong with the lower-case abbreviations a.m. and p.m. Never forget the periods, though, since a.m. without periods is a word.

(Interestingly, it’s the opposite for always-capitalized B.C. and A.D. I suppose the references to Christ and God [A.D. means anno domini, “the year of our Lord”] warrant capitals.)

Family members. Capitalize names of relatives (mom, father, auntie, sis, cousin, etc.) only when they are interchangeable with the relative’s first name, as in:

            Dad told me not to hack Mother’s firewall.

Notice that the sentence still makes sense if you replace the underlined words with first names:

            George told me not to hack Dora’s firewall.

It’s a frequent mistake to capitalize relative names following a possessive, as in:

My Dad told me not to hack my Mother’s firewall.

Sub the capitalized words with first names and you get:

            My George told me not to hack my Dora’s firewall.

Obviously this is wrong; the correct sentence should be:

            My dad told me not to hack my mother’s firewall.

Terms of endearment and insult. These are often used interchangeably with proper names, but regardless of whether it’s honey, idiot, sweetie, flathead, dear, gumballbrain, or schmoopsie-pie, they are never capitalized.

Capitalizing ALL letters of a word for emphasis. Usually there are better ways to get your words noticed. A good rule is to do this no more than TWICE per printed page. And a good secondary rule is, that’s usually two times too many.

Compass directions. Ew. This is a hairy one. Of course you capitalize the compass directions that appear in place names on the map. Leave off the capital W in Western Australia or the capital N in North Korea and some government official in Perth or Pyongyang will be mad at you. (Sure, Kim Jong Il doesn’t have nukes any more, but you don’t want to risk the wrath of those Aussies!)

But in other cases it’s not so obvious. According to the AP stylebook, we do not capitalize compass directions unless they refer to specific regions. And that depends a lot on the context. 

“He went back east”

is correct if it simply means he turned back toward the rising sun. But if it means he was in California and returned to Ohio, you would capitalize East since it means not only the direction but also the area east of the Mississippi.

Similarly, “the west coast” is correct if it means the coastline itself but capitalized (“the West Coast”) if it means the coastal region.

But you don’t capitalize if there is already a capital in the region phrase because it includes a place name. So while you would capitalize in “the Northeast,” you do not capitalize in “the northeast United States.”

BUT (that’s becoming a trend, isn’t it?) some regions are in such widespread use that even though they already contain a capitalized place name, we acknowledge the popularity of the designation by capitalizing the compass direction too. Two common examples are Western Europe and Southern California.

If you’re ever in doubt, consult a stylebook.

Or just stick it at the beginning of the sentence.