good English

Ask anyone (!) and they’ll say that initial capitalisation is used to start a sentence and to identify names of people, countries, places and institutions which you’d find in the phone-book. Thus, one has John Smith who lives in England and works at Falmer-station for Southern Railway. However, in the staff-newsletter, John may worryingly be described as a Senior Ticketman, which isn’t his name, just his paygrade. At the head of John’s nation we have Elizabeth II, the reigning female monarch, also known as a queen. In Britain at least, however, she’s not the queen but the Queen. I can’t think why, any more than I can understand why we have the Second World War or the National Health Service (which, as far as I can tell, doesn’t exist as a single institution).

Ah, say the capitalists (those who support the initial capitalisation of non-proper nouns), when we say the Queen, we mean a particular queen. Sure, I say, but when I talk about my dog (which is a particular dog) I don’t call him the Dog. Same goes for prime ministers. There are lots of them but, just because, when you write prime minister, you mean the one who runs the Canadian government, that doesn’t make it a proper noun. Same goes for the pope. Sure, you might write Pope Benedict, but he’s a pope, not a Pope or the Pope.

Ah, say the capitalists, the conventions are somewhat fluid. They accommodate certain roles and not others. But if they’re that fluid, they’re surely not rules and we have anarchy. Or maybe we have Anarchy. After all, some people write about Communism, so why can’t any political expression have an initial capital? You see, once you let certain vulgar nouns have initial caps, any Noun can.

I’m a radical, me (in case you hadn’t noticed). Indeed, I might even be a Radical. I suggest that we refer to the linguistics and English language department at the University of Sussex, where there is a professor of linguistics who is, of course, Dr Max Wheeler with all those capitals. The department (not the Department) is benignly ruled over by its head (not Head) of department. Much nicer, easier on the eye and not needing so many wasteful pressings of the shift-key.