Forum: Author Hangout

If the word "fall" not being capitalized causes confusion because it has other meanings, simply change it to "autumn." :-)

Grrr, I wanted to write this after reading his post, but you were faster!

HM.

sheeeet I bin outta skool so long I have no idea what a noun, adjective or verb is anymore...Dang! I surprised myself remembering the word "verb"! 🤣

This will be context dependent.

According to NASA's guidelines and AP, "sun" should be capitalized when used in an astronomical context.

Both MLA and CMOS follow similar rules, but it's a bit confusing so I'm going to post the examples:

When Merriam-Webster indicates that a term is "capitalized" or "usually capitalized," the MLA capitalizes the term in its publications. When Merriam-Webster indicates that a term is "often capitalized," our practice varies. We usually lowercase sun, moon, and earth, but, following The Chicago Manual of Style, when the does not precede the name of the planet, when earth is not part of an idiomatic expression, or when other planets are mentioned, we capitalize earth:

The earth revolves around the sun.

The astronauts landed on the moon.

The space shuttle will return to Earth next year.

The four planets closest to the sun—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—compose the inner solar system.

Some other resources define things a bit differently, saying that you should capitalize "sun" whenever using it as a proper noun: "The Sun is shining today" vs "You need to get some sun". This is a logically correct use, but not standard.

As with many of these edge cases, the most important thing is that an author be consistent.

So it's the "the" that makes it lower case?

In this example I would agree although personally I like to see planets capitalized for clarity.
'Earth' = planet, 'earth' = dirt
'Sun' = planet , 'sun' is what shines
Seems much clearer to me, disregarding what the official rules say.
On the other hand I find capitalization of weekdays totally unnecessary. There's no way ???day can be interpreted as anything other than a weekday, with or without capitalization.

???day can be interpreted as anything other than a weekday

Wednesday is the day nes gets married.

Wednesday is the day nes gets married.

And on Friday you cook in the pan?

'Sun' = planet ,

Just nit-picking: 'Sun' = star or stellar object, but never planet.

HM.

Chicago Manual of Style seems indifferent about this question. From their online Q & A:

Capitalization

Q. Searching through CMOS, I can't determine if this sentence is properly capitalized: "It is the sign that sat squarely on the Earth's eastern horizon when you were born." (It's for an astrological publication.) Specifically, should the words earth, eastern, and horizon be capitalized, and is the "the" before Earth correct? Thank you.

A. Considered as a planet among other planets and bodies in our own solar system, "Earth" may be capitalized. In such contexts, "Sun" and "Moon" may also be capitalized, and "Earth" often appears without the definite article—like Mars and the other planets, but unlike the Sun and the Moon:

The Moon is much closer to Earth than the Sun is to Mercury.

If you (or your publication) prefer instead to write "the Earth" (as in your example)—and to use lowercase for the sun and the moon—that's okay too. Just be consistent.

Questions like yours wouldn't come up if not for the fact that there are many moons and suns besides our own, and the earth to us is both a planet and the substance on its surface (and the model for other earthlike planets). In ordinary prose—or in any generic reference that doesn't depend on the identity of a specific astronomical body among other such objects, or where our own earth and sun and moon may be assumed—lowercase is almost always appropriate:

We learned that the moon is round, the earth is flat, and the sun is a golden orb.

Why on earth would anyone under the sun believe the moon is made of cheese?

Ganymede is Jupiter's largest moon.

Circumbinary planets are planets that orbit two suns.

As for "eastern horizon," that's a relatively generic description, so lowercase is your best option. See CMOS 8.140 and 8.141 for a few additional considerations.

There is only one satellite that is called "the Moon." There is only one star called "the Sun." Why would they not be proper nouns?

I am not sure what you mean.
Would you write: The Moon is bright tonight" or "The Sun is low over the horizon?"

AP capitalizes the proper names of planets, including Earth, stars, constellations, etc., but lowercases sun and moon.

I think that is because of the difference between a real name and the classification of a stellar object. The confusion is that we name our sun sun, and our moon moon... if you get what I mean :D

... the sun is named "Sol" ...

Yep, SOL really is a star! With a forum!

Just nit-picking: 'Sun' = star or stellar object, but never planet.

I know :) but it was in line with Earth = planet.

On the other hand I find capitalization of weekdays totally unnecessary. There's no way ???day can be interpreted as anything other than a weekday, with or without capitalization.

Well, ironically, two of those are slightly altered "Sun day" and "Moon day", so we are back to stellar objects being capitalized. The other days are based on gods' names, so derived from proper nouns (e.g. Thor's Day).

Weekdays aren't capitalized in Latvian either.

We have them simply numbered firstday (Monday) through sixthday (Saturday), plus a holyday (Sunday). Well, the weekday numerals are tighter compound words than one would use for simply counting. There's archaic seventhday and halfholy and it is bit unclear what those correspond to, and there's a theory we had nine day weeks before christian invasion.

Russian doesn't capitalize either, and has mangled numerals for second (Tuesday), fourth (Thursday) and fifth (Friday), but Wednesday is derived from middle, Saturday I fail to translate, Sunday is resurrection and Monday is something akin under-week-it for some reason.

Yes, obviously.

Yes, but note that the phrase about astronomical use is from a different system. NASA and AP (Associated Press) say that astronomical use is capitalised. MLA and CMOS say differently.

You can't apply the AP rule-set to the CMOS examples.

And yes, Sun is She with a capital letter when mentioned in quasi-religious way,

The French will tell you the sun is He (le Soleil), but the moon is She (la Lune).

HM.

We (Latvians) have it the other way, moon is a he. Moonlight is a she though, because all light is female, although rays are male.

We (Latvians) have it the other way, moon is a he. Moonlight is a she though, because all light is female, although rays are male.

Nearly identical to German, except for light, in German light has no gender (neuter).
This makes me curious, what gender has girl in Latvian?
In German woman (Frau) is female, but girl (Mädchen) and wife (Weib, now obsolete or derogatory used) are both neuter!

HM.

Latvian is strongly gendered language, there is no neither option.

Salt (sāls) was proposed to become the first example of neutral gender, but to my knowledge that plot failed. The word is male in chemistry or technical context and female as kitchen salt (usage that predates the technical by millennia), even when talking about exactly same sample of the same substance. There's some members of Language Commission (the government body regulating grammar as law of the land) whose mind blows about such irregularity.

Fire (uguns) is female, but can be and is used as male arbitrary. I think (without looking it up) the only difference in the word itself is in dative (f:ugunij/m:ugunim), but of course, adjectives and so forth must agree in gender with the noun, so the assumed gender will be abundantly clear very soon.

In most cases it's trivial to flip gender of a word at will, and generally legal, even if some result in weird words or special surprise meanings that the opposite gender word had been captured by.

While we do pay much attention to match words with the (perceived) gender of the subject in many cases, words that are grammatically male but literally mean "girl" or "woman" are commonly in use, even along with female versions of the same words being readily available.

For example f:skuķe / m:skuķis both mean undoubtedly and exclusively "a girl" (one that's perhaps naughty; the word is sometimes considered light slang and may reveal the speaker opinion as not necessarily high about said young female, although by far not always). While skuķe rhymes with puķe (flower) and the mental image is automatically ultra-feminine, skuķis either is indeed tomboyish girl (the ultimate skuķis could be Pippi Longstocking as an archetype), or the speaker is seeking to diminish the impact of her femininity (perhaps because of suppressed personal attraction). The later is by far the more common usage of the word, while the feminine form is relatively rare and almost exclusively confined to poetry.

Likewise sievišķis is grammatical male, but literally translates as something akin "(annoying) person who's a (female) member of the wife class."

This makes me curious, what gender has girl in Latvian?

As the above indicates there's a flurry of words that can be adjusted at will, but generally female.

The official primary term for "girl" is "meitene" with is derived from the principal core word meita (daughter / unmarried female / live in maid; contextually or in idioms: bride / whore / spinster; iet meitās literally: "to go in daughters" ~> "to go daughter hunting" ~> "to seek a pickup"; meitumāja "house of daughters" = brothel) using grammar that usually results in at least slightly derogatory terms or denoting diminished quality. So meitene = "not quite a daughter."

Best and most used masculine form of meitene is meitietis, although it is more derivative, "person of girl-class" than direct gender flip (and I suspect, predates the very derivation of word meitene by many centuries). Direct would be meitenis or meitens that both are at least slightly awkward, although the latter may well be part of one regional accent or other "old-age" speech patterns. Just to make it explicit, the grammatical gender flip won't indicate a dick-girl in those cases (although with a stretch could be used for such), the meaning remains unchanging, even though flavor may be added.