Last month, I put in some thoughts about capitalization of Earth and Moon at the end of my blog posting (Long-Lost Lunar Pics and the Lunar Slamdown: Some Recent Space Science News). I did not anticipate reader reaction to this, with over 365 comments and dozens of emails–on both sides of the issue. A few readers told me how tears welled up in their eyes, when they read the line, ““If a meteor hits me, don’t I crater? If my plates move, don’t I crack?” Time magazine did a cover story, “Rethinking the miniscule earth!” Many universities are holding meetings to consider updating their editorial style guide. Of course there was the mail from those who disagreed and like many attacks, they took on distressingly ad hominem nature. No doubt some of these were fueled by Fox TV News, who advocated the status quo: “Why change? Rillero is pandering to the liberal media. We think he should be labeled a Lunatic with a capital ‘L.”

But back to reality… I will be the first to admit that grammar isn’t as exciting as science, but nevertheless, I will share some random ideas about capitalization that science teachers and students should know. Start brewing the coffee; it is difficult to get through all this without some caffeine.

General Guidelines

First, let’s start with rule A from the University of South Carolina’s Publication’s Editorial Style Guide: When in doubt, do not capitalize.

Then a good hedge statement always comes in handy, like this one from the University of Chicago:

“But “rules” in writing — unlike, say, rules in Newtonian physics — are not written in stone. They are established by agreement among experienced writers, even though experienced writers can and do disagree all the time.”

I find this an interesting analogy. I wonder if people of science look at grammar as black and white but consider science to be changing and based upon shared understanding. While people of grammar view science as black and white, but consider grammar to be changing and based upon shared understanding. I like using analogies to explain science, but I find it interesting when people use science to explain other things. (But I will save this for a future blog posting.)

From NASA: Celestial Objects

While not everyone would agree with my call to use capital letters when referring to the Earth, Moon, and Sun as celestial objects, NASA certainly does.

According to the NASA style guide:  Names of celestial bodies such as “the North Star, Halley’s Comet, Venus, Earth (the planet), the Sun, the Moon (Earth’s) are capitalized.” So let the controversy end!  But we don’t capitalize, again according to NASA, “earth (the ground) and moons of Jupiter.” I went into this a bit more in my earlier blog post.

For lack of a better organization, let’s fly with NASA for a bit. We also capitalize geologic names such as geologic periods (Upper Cambrian Period, Bronze Age) and soil groups (Laterite, Tundra).

 These capitalization comments are from NASA’s Grammar, punctuation, and capitalization: A handbook for technical writers and editors written by Mary K. Mccaskill. The entire handbook is online as a PDF document. This guide has way more to it than capitals, so if you want a good free guide to technical writing, have at it. I think it is a good idea to introduce students to different types of style guides.

From NASA: Geologic Entities and Life

Here are a few more capitalization nuggets from NASA:

• While we do capitalize days of the week (Monday) and months (October), we don’t capitalize seasons (fall, spring).
• For biological names, we don’t capitalize common names (red buckeye) unless they contain a proper noun (Ohio buckeye).
• We do capitalize kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, and genus but we don’t capitalize species.

So for instance:

Kingdom: Plantae; Division: Magnoliophyta; Class: Magnoliopsida; Order: Sapindales; Family: Sapindaceae; Genus: Aesculus; and Species:   glabra

But of course in binomial nomenclature we describe the species with both the genus and species, so for the Ohio buckeye tree, we have Aesculus glabra (see image to the right).

University of South Carolina: More Science Tidbits

Capitalize the formal name of departments but not the informal names. Correct: He enrolled in the Department of Civil Engineering. Also correct: He enrolled in the civil engineering department.

Capitalize entire geographic names and regions of the country but not compass directions or localities. For example: Saluda River
 Sesquicentennial State Park;  Midwest;  western
East Coast;  and northern Atlantic.

Other Random Tidbits from University of Oregon:

Don’t capitalize names of university majors and minors except for proper nouns. For example, “He has a major in Swahili and a minor in biology.”

The names of university courses are capitalized, so for instance, I often teach Methods of Elementary Science 411.

Company trademarks are capitalized. Both of my sons ate Earth’s Best baby food. (This was the first major organic baby food brand and it was started by my brother-in-law Arnie Koss).

“Addresses on Envelopes 
The United States Postal Service requires that addresses appear on envelopes in all-capital letters and, except for the hyphenated ZIP code, without punctuation.”

I wonder if the US Postal Service has some sort of amnesty program because I better turn myself in for violating this one. But if you agree with capitalizing Earth and Moon, please write to me at this address on the left and if you disagree with my comments and want to do an ad hominem attack, please write me at the address on the right. 

Majuscule

In my internet research on capitalization of science terms, I came across a new term: majuscule. It sounds like a school Harry Potter should attend to work on his magic. But this word refers to, as far as I can tell, capital letters. Odd that most people haven’t heard of majuscule, yet miniscule is well known.

Conclusion

If you read all the way to this point, you really have a strong regard for capital appreciation. Capitalization is a tricky affair, but as long as you have your own style guide—there won’t be any capital punishment. Although, we shouldn’t consider the importance of a proper majuscule as miniscule.

For the Record

The first paragraph about the capital controversy was in jest. The address in capitals quote was real but I don’t know if it is true. Arnie Koss is my brother-in-law. The buckeye drawings are from Minnesota Trees and Shrubs (Clements, Rosendahl, and Butters, 1912), which was scanned by Google.  

There were two science articles this week that are interesting follow ups to the blog I wrote about a fifth grade teacher showing YouTube videos of the lunar landing “hoax”.

Seth Borenstein  (an AP Science writer) wrote the article entitled, “Long-lost lunar photos get another day in the sun.” According to Borenstein, Nancy Evans kept the pre-Apollo lunar probe photo machine (1,000 pounds) in her garage for two decades! Way to go Nancy! Beyond preserving these important images for science students and researchers, maybe my wife will let me keep my canoe in the garage for a second decade.

A group of talented and enthusiastic folks repaired the photo machine and is now processing (at an abandoned McDonald’s restaurant) and releasing the photos at www.moonviews.com. This is a great deed they are doing – let’s hope all the old ketchup and grease in their humble workspace is gone. These photos were originally used to help decide where to land on the moon. The image to the right is a newly released image of “the Earthrise.” I love the retro feel of the images. When we get new images of the Moon by upcoming probes, it will be great to compare old and new to see what changes have occurred in the lunar landscape after 40+ years.

The other article is by another AP writer Gavin Rabinowitz: “India celebrates planting its flag on moon.” India is getting ambitious in space exploration as natural extensions of its scientific, technical, and economic progress. From the article’s headline, and from The Hindustan Times headline, “The Tricolor has Landed” and the Hindu’s  “India leaves its footprints on the moon, you might imagine a probe sending the green, white, and saffron flag to the moon, and in true Wallace and Gromit fashion, a robot would come out to unfurl and plant the Indian Flag. But no! Rather, the space agency painted the probe the colors of the Indian flag and the probe crashed into the moon at a speed of 5,000 kilometers per hour. This would be more than 14 times the speed of sound in air! The probe’s name was Chandrayaan-1, where Chandrayaan is an ancient Sanskrit word that I suspect means tiny flakes of green, white, and saffron mixed with gray dust.

This may go down as the cheesiest flag planting in history; nevertheless, it is still a remarkable technological achievement. India joins with the US, European Space Agency, Russia, China, and Japan as the only countries to send a spacecraft to the Moon. India plans to send a rover to the Moon by 2011 and perhaps if General Motors goes out of business, in 2012 we can buy a version of the rover for traversing the large craters of unrepaired roads in Flint, Detroit, and Ann Arbor, Michigan.  

Grammar: Capital Offences

I am not one to play the “holier than thou” card, and when it comes to grammar I am far from being an expert.  But when it comes to capitalization of certain familiar celestial objects, many writers follow illogical conventions, including Borenstein and Rabinowitz. Not that I am blaming them, they are following a convention, although in my mind, it is a convention that should be thrown out. Since we capitalize Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, isn’t Earth just as good as other planets? (“If a meteor hits me, don’t I crater? If my plates move, don’t I crack?) Shouldn’t we capitalize Earth whenever we refer to it as a planet? I say, “Yes, this is logical!” Of course if you are talking about the soil and call it earth that is an entirely different matter. To whit, “The aliens from Mars came to Earth and scooped up some earth and then went to Venus.”

And if you are talking about our Moon, it should be also capitalized, just as you do for Phobos, and Europa. In fact, the term moon refers to large natural objects that orbit planets. So if you are talking about the Earth’s moon, called the Moon, you should capitalize it like you do the names of other moons. And this way it is clear you are talking about a specific celestial object. For instance, “Our astronomy class focused on moons. During the night we observed the following moons: Moon, Io, and Ganymede.

And we capitalize the common names of stars such as Proxima Centaur, Sirius, and Rigil Kentaurus so we should capitalize the Sun, when we refer to it as a celestial object.

It seems the only logic for not capitalizing Sun, Earth, and Moon is that we use these terms a lot. But that logic is weak. Familiarity shouldn’t change capitalization rules. Even if I say, “Arizona” a lot, it should still be capitalized. And, “President Bush” should keep his capitals even after he leaves the capital.

Resources

Adaptive Curriculum’s Flash-based Activity Object Entitled, “Star Types” Students send probes to find a planet suitable for human life.

Dinkin, Sam (January 31, 2005) “Capitalize the Moon.” The Space Review

Closest Stars 

Table of Moons in our Solar System

For the Record

Chandrayaan is indeed an ancient Sanskrit word but it means, “moon craft.”

1,000 pounds is approximately 454 kilograms.

I have a racing canoe so it doesn’t come anywhere near weighing 1,000 pounds. But it takes up more room than the old photo processor.

5,000 kilometers is approximately 3,107 miles.

Although Ann Arbor doesn’t directly make cars or trucks, the collapse of the auto industry would have sweeping consequences for many other industries, universities, towns, and states. The inclusion of “Ann Arbor” is to make this point and it does not constitute an insult to the university in that town, nor is it meant to draw attention to its 2008 football season.