Are All Nouns Created Equal?
By Denise
Loock
Arbitrary capitalization wreaks havoc in written communication. Nouns of every variety have been exalted to proper status even though they’re common and should remain common. Revolutionists cry, “Aren’t all nouns created equal?”
Basic capitalization
rules haven’t changed since we learned them in elementary school. We capitalize
proper nouns—names of particular people, places, things, or ideas. We don’t
capitalize common nouns—the general names for people, places, things, or ideas.
For example, queen is a common noun,
but Queen Elizabeth II is a proper
noun.
The
current capitalization craze may have been passed down to us unintentionally by
our forefathers. In centuries past, writers used initial uppercase letters to
emphasize and embellish. That’s why Thomas Jefferson began the Declaration of
Independence with “When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for
one People …”
Discard
Personal Preferences
Many authors, bloggers, and tweeters have revived this outdated practice. Who’s to say what should and shouldn’t be capitalized? If I believe chocolate is a proper noun, why shouldn’t it be? That iconoclastic mindset motivates writers to capitalize words such as patriotism or democracy. Christians favor uppercase letters for what they value: cross, truth, and believer.
Avoid unjustified
capitalization when proper adjectives are combined with common nouns. Combinations
that bamboozle Christian writers include Sunday
school, Bible study, and vacation Bible school. Some words are reduced to common status
as adjectives: scriptural, biblical, and messianic.
The Christian Writer’s Manual
of Style (CWMS)
devotes fourteen pages to “Capitalization of Religious Terms.” Some of its
recommendations surprised me: chosen
people (Jews), church (body of
Christ and a local congregation), the devil
(Satan), and the exodus (from Egypt).
Other words made sense as common nouns: temple,
tabernacle, patriarch, and magi.
Lowercase
Deity Descriptions and Pronouns
For names
of God CWMS advises, “When a word or
phrase is used as a name for one of the persons of the Trinity, capitalize it.
Be especially sensitive to phrases that seem as if they could be names but are
really descriptors, which are lowercase.”[1]
Many
writers capitalize pronouns that refer to God—such as He, His, You, and Me. But
most publishers, Christian and secular, discourage this practice. Why? The running
text may conflict with Scripture quotations if the Bible translation cited doesn’t
capitalize the pronouns. Some readers, unfamiliar with this way of honoring God,
may be more confused than enlightened by the uppercase letters.
Adopt a
Democratic Approach
Writers
value independent thought and creative license, but individualism creates chaos
in the capitalization world. To harness our uppercase urges, I recommend the
following:
· Create emphasis with word choice
and sentence structure instead of capital letters.
· Admit that your personal
preferences aren’t the standard, and yield to recognized authorities in the
publishing industry.
· Invest in a online edition of
the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
· Purchase the current edition of
The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style.
If the goal of writing is clear communication, nouns should remain unequal. Sorry about that, Thomas Jefferson.
[1] Robert Hudson, The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style,
Fourth ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016). See page 376 for comments on the
names of God. See pages 101–114 for the recommended format of religious terms.
See pages 144–147 for the use of deity pronouns.
Photo by Rubaitul Azad on Unsplash
Photo by Michele Wales on Unsplash
I may be an English teacher, but you are my English teacher :))
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for those kind words, Martin.
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