[Lexicog] Re: Capitalisation of Common Names

[Benjamin Barrett]

The bird articles in Wikipedia have specific guidelines that are  
useful for their purposes as the following citation indicates:

The common name of a species is always capitalised to differentiate  
it from more general terms.[1] The phrase "in Australia there are  
many Common Starlings" indicates a large number of Sturnus vulgaris.  
In contrast, the phrase "in Australia there are many common  
starlings" indicates several different types of starling. (http:// 
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds#Bird_names_and_article_titles)

In everyday writing, however, capitalization is not used for animal/ 
plant species, though when the name is derived from a proper noun,  
capitalization is generally used:

Stellar's sea cow
Chinese red pine

Then again, specialists/researchers often capitalize nouns that are  
within their field of study (and that seems to rub off on laypeople  
in irregular bursts). Wikipedia articles frequently capitalize the  
article name throughout the article, counter to common usage, so that  
is not a good resource for capitalization.

My two cents are that it is easiest to not capitalize (other than for  
proper name derivations and genus names) so that you never have to  
worry about it. If you do capitalize, where do you stop? Dogs and  
Cats, Collies and Tabbies...?

Aloha from Maui
Benjamin Barrett

On Dec 15, 2009, at 12:50 AM, Greg and Heather Mellow wrote:

> 
>
> Apparently there is some controversy about how to capitalise (or  
> capitalize) the common names of plants and animals.
>
> The great white shark and the tiger shark can apparently be written  
> with minuscule, but Cattle Egret and Snowy Egret are written with  
> capitals. The names River Red Gum and Common Daisy are written with  
> capitals, but poison dart frog and cane toad can be written with  
> minuscule.
>
> If I use a combination of capitals and non-capitals for animals and  
> plants, the dictionary will look inconsistent. I have already been  
> 'corrected' for not using capitals, and again for using capitals.
>
> What is common practice among lexicographers of minority languages?
>
> Regards, Greg
>
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lexicography/attachments/20091215/12b52ba2/attachment.htm>