[WikiEN-l] A plea for sanity in capitalisation from the coalface

Sun Apr 27 01:44:22 UTC 2003

Mav writes: 
> Thus common nouns (those that tell the "kind" of something) are not
> capitalized but proper nouns (those that name a singular, specific person,
> place or thing) are capitalized. Anything other than that complicates
> matters.

This sounds logical but is completely inconsistent. Consider

V-1 Flying Bomb: This is a *kind* of aircraft, but it is capitalised
Labrador Retriever: This is a *kind* of dog, but it is capitalised
Splendid Fairy-wren: This is a specific *kind* of fairy-wren, which is
why it too is capitalised. (A non-specific kind is written as
plain"fairy-wren".)

The rules of correct capitalisation for species are plain and in the
main straightforward. Those of us who do the vast bulk of the work in
the fauna entries all know those rules and use them  - which is
precisely why we all have such difficulty when well-meaning people come
along and ask us to ignore them! 

The goal of the encyclopedia is indeed to be consistent. Right now it
is highly *inconsistent* in that it uses the correct term for most
things but tries to impose incorrect and ambiguous terms on only *some*
of the fauna.

Tony Wilson
(Tannin)