英语语法：37 Capitalizing Proper Nouns

Grammar Girl here.

Today's topic is capitalizing tricky 1 nouns like Ground Zero, Internet, and Earth.

Quite a few people have asked me whether they should capitalize the words Internet, Web, and website, including Chris from Olney, Maryland; Matt from Moscow, Idaho; and a listener named Ji Soo Yi.

Proper Nouns

To answer these questions, I need to decide whether these words are proper nouns or common nouns. If you remember the Saturday morning cartoon Schoolhouse Rock, you'll remember that a noun is a person, place, or thing.

But proper nouns name specific people, places, or things. Names like Chris, Matt, and Ji Soo are capitalized because they are proper nouns that name specific people. On the other hand, boy, girl, and computer aren't capitalized because they are common nouns that don't refer to any one individual person or item.

So names are easy, but what about these other words that seem as if they could go either way.

Internet, Web, and Website

Is the Internet one specific place or is it a collection of things? Most language experts believe the Internet is one big specific place that people visit, so Internet is capitalized, as is Web because it is just a shorthand name for the Internet. On the other hand, the Web is populated by many different websites, so website is not capitalized. Internet and Web are proper nouns because they refer to something specific, whereas website is a common noun that can be used to refer to many different places on the Internet. Some people disagree that the Internet is one specific place, and I'm curious what you all think, so I've put a poll in the transcript 2 at the website, which is quickanddirtytips.com.

Ground Zero

Since we're coming up on September 11th, I was thinking about Ground Zero, and I realized that sometimes I see the words ground zero capitalized and sometimes I don't. Back in 2001, it seemed as if the name Ground Zero got assigned to the site of the World Trade Center in New York almost immediately. Traditionally, ground zero means the site of a nuclear explosion, and sometimes it is used to refer to the site of a more general explosion or an area where rapid change has taken place. In those general instances, ground zero would be a common noun and wouldn't be capitalized. On the other hand, although there are a few dissenters 3, most notably 4 the New York Times, most people agree that Ground Zero is the name of the specific site of the former World Trade Center, and therefore it's a proper noun that needs to be capitalized when it is used in that way (1, 2, 3, 4).

Depression

Another word that's sort of like ground zero, in that sometimes it's a proper noun and sometimes it's a common noun, is depression. If you're talking about a general economic depression, then it's lowercase, but if you're talking about the Great Depression, then you are referring to a specific historical period, so it's capitalized (5).

Planets

The last word I'm going to talk about today is earth. First, when you are using the word earth to just refer to dirt, of course it's lowercase, but when you're talking about our planet, it becomes tricky because there isn't what I consider a strong rule. All the other planet names like Mars and Jupiter are always capitalized because they're names that refer to specific places, but for some reason, most people treat earth differently and don't capitalize it. Sometimes you'll see it capitalized when it's listed with all the other planet names or when it's referred to in an astronomical 5 way. For example, it will likely be capitalized in a sentence talking about space travel like, “We plan to leave Earth in January and arrive at Mars in October,” but it is likely to be lowercase in a sentence where it is used more generically 6, like, “I'm wishing for peace on earth and goodwill 7 to men.” So the word earth is an exception to the rule that something is always a proper noun and capitalized if it names one specific place. I hate exceptions, but it's good to know about them.

History of English Capitalization

Finally, here's an interesting aside: I took German in high school, and one of the first things I noticed is that all the nouns are capitalized. Whether they are common nouns or proper nouns, they all get capitalized in German. And I also noticed that some of the kids in my class got really confused and started capitalizing all their nouns in English too. So that's something to watch out for if you're studying German. Remember that in English, proper nouns are the only nouns that get capitalized. (Actually, there was a period roughly between 1600 and 1800 when it was trendy to capitalize all nouns in English (6, 7), so if you're reading something written during that time, like the U.S. Constitution, you can also get confused.)

That's all.

People have been uploading great photos to the Grammar Girl group at Flickr. My favorite one this week is a slick image from a Florida McDonald's. The sign says, “My Friend's and I love working at McDonald's” and friends is spelled with an apostrophe s. I think I like it so much because it looks professionally produced, as though someone spent a lot of time on the layout but then got the words wrong.

If you visitQuickAndDirtyTips.com you can find my contact information and a transcript of this and all the other podcasts. You'll also notice that we've launched a new website. I hope the new site will make it easier to read the transcripts 8, play the podcast from the website, and find what you're looking for in the archives. And I hope you like it!

Thanks for listening.