If you put inverted commas around a word it means it isn't really a
whatever. So saying "a 'little penguin' was swimming in the water" prompts
the question, "what was it then?"
John Leonard
On 4 January 2012 10:04, Jeremy O'Wheel <> wrote:
> Sorry if I open a can of worms, but surely the common names of
> organisms are not proper nouns, and so should not be capitalised. In
> cases where using the common name could cause confusion (ie. with a
> little penguin), I would have thought the grammatically correct
> response would be to put inverted commas around the name. "There was
> a 'little penguin' in the water" seems pretty clear to me.
>
> Jeremy
>
> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 9:42 AM, Carl Clifford <>
> wrote:
> > Sean,
> >
> > Lack of capitalisation is a pet bugbear of mine as well and it can
> certainly
> > lead to some interesting reading at times. I have never forgotten an
> example
> > of what non-capitalisation can lead to that was drummed into me by my
> > English Master, "I had to help my Uncle Jack off a horse". Removing the
> > capitals does give a somewhat different meaning to the sentence.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Carl Clifford
> >
> >
> >
> > On 04/01/2012, at 7:52 AM, SeanDooley wrote:
> >
> > Hi Mark,
> >
> > This is a pet peeve of mine, (and one that has been discussed before on
> this
> > forum so I won't go into the debate about why we should capitalise bird
> > names). While I don't specifically know why the BBC have gone down the
> > lower-case path, I do know that they are not Robinson Crusoe in this, and
> > that this is the standard in the publishing world.
> >
> > I had to make a strong representation to my publisher to maintain
> > capitalisation of bird names in my books The Big Twitch and Anoraks to
> > Zitting Cisticola. I have never been successful when writing for other
> > publications such as The Age. Even Australian Geographic, which prides
> > itself on accuracy when it comes to the natural world refuse point blank
> to
> > stray from the standard lower-case approach. More than one editor I have
> > dealt with has privately admitted they would prefer to use capitalisation
> > but are bound by the house style. And thus readers will never know that
> when
> > they read the line "A little penguin popped its head out of the water
> next
> > to the boat" whether the bird in question was the species Eudyptula
> minor or
> > whether it was a small penguin of indeterminate species.
> >
> > Sean Dooley
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:
> > On Behalf Of Mark
> Stanley
> > Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 10:58 PM
> > To:
> > Subject: [Birding-Aus] BBC story - capitalising bird names
> >
> > I noticed that the article in the link supplied by David uses lower-case
> > letters for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper's name and I recall this issue
> being
> > raised before on birding-aus. Has anyone found out why the BBC takes
> this
> > approach? I have asked them myself but not very hopeful of a response.
> >
> > Mark Stanley
> >
> > Message: 3
> > Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:47:44 +1000
> > From: david taylor <>
> > To: " Aus" <>
> > Subject: [Birding-Aus] Project to save the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
> > Message-ID: <>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII
> >
> > This is worth waching
> >
> >
> > http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16215541
> >
> >
> >
> > cheers
> >
> > David Taylor
> > ===============================
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> > send the message:
> > unsubscribe
> > (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> > to:
> >
> > http://birding-aus.org
> > ===============================
> >
> > ===============================
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> > send the message:
> > unsubscribe
> > (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> > to:
> >
> > http://birding-aus.org
> > ===============================
> >
> > ===============================
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> > send the message:
> > unsubscribe
> > (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> > to:
> >
> > http://birding-aus.org
> > ===============================
> ===============================
>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to:
>
> http://birding-aus.org
> ===============================
>
--
John Leonard
Canberra
Australia
www.jleonard.net
I want to be with the 9,999 other things.
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
|
