After sending out Christmas letters this year, I got a phone call from my mom. She says that I have an error in my letter. I referred to the language of English with a capital "E." She insists that languages are not written with capital letters. According to her, I should write about english and spanish, not English and Spanish, because nationalities (English people and Spanish people) are written with capital letters. I disagree.

Who is correct? She was educated in Canada and I was educated in the US, so could this just be another difference between Canadian and American English (or english)?
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12-18-03, 12:24 PM
methos
You are, and you need go no further than a dictionary (or the link to an online dictionary on this page) for evidence.
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12-18-03, 12:34 PM
FredPuli
Here in the UK it is 'English'. I suppose that, Canada being a British Dominion, they have the same rule but your informant has her own, idiosyncratic method. We write 'French Canadian', both for the noun and the adjective, too.
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12-18-03, 01:08 PM
juanruiz
Is your mother's first language French? If so, that may explain her viewpoint, since the Romance languages do not capitalize in this case.
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12-18-03, 01:15 PM
maiku
You are right, Sarai. Even when words like English are used attributively, i.e., as proper adjectives, the normal practice is to capitalize them. Thus, it is not only English we speak, it is also an English muffin, a French horn, Swiss cheese, Chinese food, and American ingenuity. French fries are also awarded this honorific capitalization, but presumably this wouldn't be so for freedom fries.

Some derived forms appear not to be treated in this way, e.g., that man has a certain frenchified air about him, I haven't properly englished your text yet, and so on. I know of one case where english, as a noun, is probably better written with a lower case letter, and that is as the word for the spin you put on the cueball in pocket billiards. There may be some other examples that fail to come to mind right now.
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12-18-03, 03:31 PM
Sarai
Thanks, everyone. That clears everything right up. Plus, it's always nice to be right. Smile
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12-19-03, 08:54 PM
FredPuli
Nowadays it doesn't seem to happen with verbs, does it, this capitalising? To english and to englishise/ -ize (meaning to anglicize) are both in the Oxford English Dictionary but are not in current use here. Both verbs are capitalised in the 1993 edition but I doubt whether anyone still follows the practice. 'English' meaning a spin imparted in pool is an unknown term here . So there are three examples of 'English' to go with the English muffin ( unknown here except as a name for some American foodstuff) which you won't encounter in England. Then Brussels sprouts aren't from Brussels and turkey is not from Turkey, for example, so that's not so unusual.

M-W gives 'body English' for the spin. Perhaps it was once termed 'English spin'or somesuch but lost the noun. On its own it would seem to merit no capital letter.

The French don't even put Sir or Lord for titles ; this is most ungracious of them. To our eyes 'sir Michael Caine' or 'lord Olivier' looks quite insulting to the bearers!
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12-21-03, 01:53 PM
AMoore

quote:Originally posted by FredPuli:

- snip -

The French don't even put Sir or Lord for titles ; this is most ungracious of them. To our eyes 'sir Michael Caine' or 'lord Olivier' looks quite insulting to the bearers!



Yes. I suppose one could regard that as a "capital" offense. In German, all titles, and all proper nouns are capitalized, regardless of context. The rule is so simple that I sometimes catch myself following it when writing in English, too...

Alan Moore
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12-21-03, 02:22 PM
newnickname
So, is it 'the internet' or 'the Internet'? I prefer the first, but I think I'm in a minority.
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12-21-03, 03:35 PM
AMoore

quote:Originally posted by newnickname:
So, is it 'the internet' or 'the Internet'? I prefer the first, but I think I'm in a minority.



It's the internet -- definitely lower case. The occasional upper case useage may derive from its derivation from the ARPAnet, or may simply be an error.

Alan Moore
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12-21-03, 08:05 PM
maiku
So. The original straightforward question of Sarai's appears now to have been generalized to one about capitalization practices altogether.

Although spelling is, from the point of view of a linguist, one of the least significant aspects of a language (many languages exist that still aren't written down in any form), still, it might be of some interest if I register the following observations:

Unlike French and German, English is able to distinguish between proper nouns and common nouns orthographically. To wit: (1) the President will address the nation at 9:00 P.M. this evening; as opposed to (2) the current president was, many hold, not actually entitled to hold office by a normal electoral process.

In (1) the noun is employed as a logically proper name (i.e. as a proper noun) and it is therefore capitalized according to our English practice. In (2), the very same word is used as part of a definite description, as opposed to a name, and although it refers to the same person, it doesn't make this reference in the same way.

In this respect, at least, written English is able to make certain nice, logical distinctions which escape our French and German friends altogether.
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12-22-03, 10:41 AM
Ritzmar
Fascinating!
Lovely to read and to be made to think about our language, thanks for some very interesting points made here. I am aware of the expression 'to put english on it', meaning to impart spin to a ball.

Incidentally this applies also in table tennis and in cricket, although as Fred points out the term is unknown in the UK and is never employed here. I suspect that this expression is used exclusively in the US amongst the English-speaking nations. Here, we describe 'top spin', 'back spin', in table tennis, 'check side', 'running side', in billiards and snooker, and 'off break', and 'leg break' in cricket. Very few Brits will have heard 'put english on it'. Perhaps only you Yanks have sussed us out so thoroughly as totally untrustworthy 'spin doctors'.

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