Capital Letters?? (1 Viewer)

Steve Lister · Jul 29, 2004

I have just spent a few days at Spurn Bird Observatory and got into conversation with an author of angling and wildlife books, Alan Credland. He wanted to know why it is the norm in bird books to use capital letters for birds' names, and also when it started. He had looked at several older books in the Obs. library and found that they included the names without capitals.

I pointed out that the RSPB and at least some county trusts do not use capital letters for the names of birds in their publications, but that such as British Birds, Birding World and so on do. Also that I always capitalise them in anything that I write.

Is there a definitive right and wrong on this? What do others think? Myself I find that using capital letters makes the names stand out, and it also avoids confusion: I know what a Little Egret is but would not be sure about a little egret, for example.

Steve

birdman · Jul 29, 2004

Personal opinion time...

I don't think there is a "right" and a "wrong" way, but this seems to me to be some sort of half-way-house convention in the English Language.

You perhaps know that German capitalises all nouns (I believe) whereas English only capitalises proper nouns (eg, English, Steve, Leicester).

Russian, on the other hand only capitalises personal Names and Countries, but no other nouns - even in titles - so for examples, a Russian would have titled this thread "Capital letters".

But I digress...

I suppose, therefore, that Little Egret qualifies as (nearly) a proper noun in English, and convention seems to have led to capitalisation.

On a truly personal point of view though, it also conveys a extra meaning to me, that is "Little Egret" is the species whereas "little egret" is merely any egret that is not large.

Edward · Jul 29, 2004

As Birdman points out it is a matter of personal opinion and there is no real grammatical reason in English to write Blackbird rather than blackbird but there seems to be a convention in birding circles that species names are written in capitals and I do it without fail. It annoys the hell out of me whenever I read something the RSPB produces with lower case for species names, and it really jars the eye. However, I'd write generic names in lower case, i.e. my targets for my trip to Queensland this autumn include Chowchilla, various bowerbirds, especially Golden Bowerbird, Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfisher, although I'd be happy to see any kingfisher etc.

E

Edward woodwood · Jul 29, 2004

there is a 'right' way or 'conventional' way if you prefer and that is capitalisation. Little Tern rather than little tern......the reasons are obvious i hope.....can't have 10 little terns in a scientific paper - were they Saunders' Least, Little? etc

write what you like in your own notes of course but anything for publication ought to be capitalised.

Bluetail · Jul 29, 2004

I think Birdman has said pretty well everything that needs to be said. I guess that technically it depends on whether or not you regard bird's names as a proper nouns. It seems that strict grammarians don't, but most ornitholigical publishers do.

Clarity is everything really and the "Little Egret" v. "the egret that is little" argument speaks for itself. Furthermore, capitals guide the eye and help the name to stand out more clearly on the page.

Bluetail · Jul 29, 2004

I didn't see Edward's post, but I agree entirely. Used as a proper noun: "Kingfisher". Used generically: "kingfisher(s)".

Michael Frankis · Jul 29, 2004

It is done for two reasons:

First to avoid confusing the general with the specific, e.g.:
"There are three common terns in Northumberland, Sandwich Tern, Common Tern and Arctic tern, and five common gulls, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull and Great Black-backed Gull"

Second, because it introduces uniformity of treatment, so that you don't have to work out whether a species 'should' or 'shouldn't' be capitalised depending on the etymology of the name. Otherwise you have to go through the silliness of having to capitalise some (e.g. birds named after people or places) but not others, which makes the species concerned appear to be of unequal taxonomic status (even though they are equal)

Michael

Edward woodwood · Jul 29, 2004

useful stuff here for birders on conventions in scientific writing

http://ic.ucsc.edu/~ggilbert/envs122/ConventionsScienceWriting.html

Bluetail · Jul 29, 2004

Maybe because the Genus is regarded as a noun, but the specific and subspecific names are adjectival? Only guessing. If memory serves, I don't think classical Latin (as writen by the Romans) had any capitals at all. Could be wrong though.

Andrew · Jul 29, 2004

The title of a bird is a name so it should be capitalised like people's names. I don't call myself andrew as that is bad grammar. The same should apply to birds as it lets people know you are referring to a species not a description.

Bluetail · Jul 29, 2004

Andrew said:
The title of a bird is a name so it should be capitalised like people's names. I don't call myself andrew as that is bad grammar. The same should apply to birds as it lets people know you are referring to a species not a description.

I have a feeling a stict grammarian might argue that a name is not necessarily a proper noun. Thus The Oxford Book of Style (I seem to be quoting this quite a lot lately): "A [Latin] genus name is printed in italic with an initial capital when used alone to refer to the genus. If, however, it also has become a common term in English for the organism concerned it is printed in roman and lower case [...]: thus 'Rhododendron is a widespread genus' but 'the rhododendron is a common plant'." The book should be regarded as interesting rather than a bible.

christineredgate · Jul 30, 2004

Interesting ".Common Species.Blackbird " .Sentence,"There were 3 blackbirds in the garden this morning." If one used a capital B for blackbirds in the sentence it may seem out of proportion,but to ID a bird then the capital letter seems okay and does highlight the bird species

Bluetail · Jul 30, 2004

christineredgate said:
"There were 3 blackbirds in the garden this morning." If one used a capital B for blackbirds in the sentence it may seem out of proportion

It might, but that would not be a valid criterion for capitalisation. Either you capitalise the names of species or you don't, but you must be consistent. Let's assume you do. In your sentence, if you are referring to a garden in the USA, the B might well be lower-case: "I had three blackbirds in my backyard this morning: a Red-winged Blackbird, a Yellow-headed Blackbird and a Brewer's Blackbird." However, if the garden in question is British, "blackbirds" should have a capital B because the birds could only be Turdus merulus.

Ruby · Jul 30, 2004

.... and what about capitalisation of the 'proper' Latin names....

It seems to be the form to write Common Buzzard (for example) as Buteo buteo.... Why not Buteo Buteo?? (or buteo buteo....)

scampo · Jul 30, 2004

Steve Lister said:
Is there a definitive right and wrong on this? What do others think? Myself I find that using capital letters makes the names stand out, and it also avoids confusion: I know what a Little Egret is but would not be sure about a little egret, for example.

Steve

There is a convention for this, Steve, but some folk flout some of the "rules" of style and grammar these days because they either don't care enough or never learned them.

Initial capitalisation is only used to indicate what is called a "proper noun", i.e. a naming noun - a name that is given by someone to an individual to identify that individual.

Bird names are not individual names and so should not be capitalized. However, sometimes a proper noun forms a part of a bird's name, such as "Cetti's warbler", in which case the proper noun keeps its initial capital.

Nightranger · Jul 30, 2004

Ruby said:
.... and what about capitalisation of the 'proper' Latin names....

It seems to be the form to write Common Buzzard (for example) as Buteo buteo.... Why not Buteo Buteo?? (or buteo buteo....)

The correct scientific method is definitely to capitalise the genus name and have the species (and subspecies ) in lower case - Buteo buteo. The common name convention has become a little more confused because it is accurate to have Bewick's swan in that we are dealing with a name whereas it should be mute swan because mute is the verb. Having said that, the common use of capitalisation has made writing mute swan look wrong so it is a matter of personal preference. The RSPB follows the proper scientific system (as presumably do the BTO) even if it looks aesthetically wrong. BTW, the rule is reversed with scientific names and it would be wrong to write Cygnus Bewickii, the actual systematic is Cygnus bewickii.

robinm · Jul 30, 2004

Surely the whole point of having grammatical rules is to ensure clarity in what one is writing. I think the examples above adequately prove that only by capitalising the names can one be sure of this. For that reason alone I think capitals should be used.

Scientific names are different because there is an accepted convention and no confusion can arise.

Andrew · Jul 30, 2004

Capitalisation of bird names in literature is of utmost importance as far as I am concerned as I have read some American books and where capitalisation is not used I sometimes struggle to see what the actual name of the bird is. I often can not see if the authour is using a descriptive word or the actual name.

birdman · Jul 30, 2004

robinm said:
Scientific names are different because there is an accepted convention and no confusion can arise.

In fact, of course, convention also dictates that scientific names should be italicised.

Nightranger · Jul 30, 2004

birdman said:
In fact, of course, convention also dictates that scientific names should be italicised.

Indeed, and I nearly used the convention but thought it would add to the confusion.

Capital Letters?? (1 Viewer)

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