Forum: Author Hangout

I wouldn't put in any kind of italics. Wouldn't you say:

Al surveyed the local coffee shop.
Al surveyed Starbucks.

The use of commonly known trademarks is different than an unknown shop. Most everyone knows what "McDonalds" is, even if not quite so many knows what IHOP stands for. Still, you italicize books, theater shows and (apparently) military ships, but not commercial shops.

I use single apostrophes and will also often make it italics the same way as I would a book title etc. But if extremely common I'd do neither.

That was my thinking, and my same thinking about military ships. If it's a common name that might be easily confused, you need some way to differentiate them, the same way books, plays, movies and TV shows do. However, quote marks and italics seems like overkill. If you added bolding and/or colors, you'd have the holy trifecta (or quad-fecta). You only need to differentiate a common name, not set it aflutter with neon lights.

Personally, I think the odds of confusion in the case you started this thread with are approximately zero.

It's the same with my ship name, the Blissful Destruction. It wasn't that I had no options, but I was intrigued by what the accepted wisdom was on the topic. I didn't think the various Style Guides really had any meaningful answers for corporate names (other than capitalizing them), so I was fishing for some alternative ideas.

But either way, my story is solid either way, so it's not a question of a do-or-die response.