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.  

I received the following email from a reader of this blog:

Hi Peter – I have a professional question for you as a teacher, a parent, and a science guru…

Do you think it is appropriate or inappropriate for a 5th grade (kids age 10) teacher to show her class a series of YouTube movies about the theory that the US astronauts did NOT land on the moon back in the 1960′s?  This is during a unit on Astronomy.

I know my own take on it – I just wanted to see what you thought/think?

-Amy

Thank you for the question Amy. Here is my answer….

First, it is difficult to know the motivation of the teacher for showing this. If she had expertise in the space program and she was presenting these non-scientific ideas to show how science and logic can refute them, I would say excellent.

But alas, I suspect this was not the case. More likely the teacher heard of the allegations that the landing on the Moon was a fraud, and was interested enough to read the allegations, without spending the time to look deeper. Sharing just the allegations with students through YouTube videos is not, in my opinion, what a teacher of science should do.

I still remember my parents waking me up from bed and leading me downstairs to the playroom to watch the astronauts landing on the Moon. The NASA accomplishment helped Americans realize the importance of science and technology, and for many children, it ignited more interest in science.

Of course there are so many lunar landing conspiracy theories throwing up so many trial balloons, that it would take a team of scientists a lifetime to keep shooting them all down. Some are easy to dismiss. “Hey, the US flag is blowing in the wind and there is no air on the moon. It’s a fake!” Although I don’t remember much as a 9 year old, I remember the announcers making the point that since there was no air or wind, NASA put wires into the flag to hold it up.

Then there is the logical question, why can’t we just point a telescope at the places where they landed so we can see if their stuff is there?

But according to NASA, “The Moon is 384,400 km away. At that distance, the smallest things Hubble can distinguish are about 60 meters wide.” We will someday have probes and people return to the moon that will confirm the existence of these leftover materials. You might think that would put it all to rest but guess what? This is already anticipated by the conspiracy theorists, who say, well un-manned vessels could have put the materials there.

If it was a hoax, you would think the fewer people involved the better. Why not pretend to go just once, instead of nine times so less people are involved? There are 12 astronauts that walked on the moon, who indicated it really happened. There are hundreds of other NASA personnel who also say the same thing. From personal accounts to moon rocks, the evidence suggests this did happen.

I can’t take the time to research all the theories and all the counter-arguments. But in my mind, science is so rarely taught in elementary classrooms, that it is a sin to spend science instructional time on pseudo-science via YouTube videos. Let’s spend time helping students learn about science and the contributions it has made.

Resources

Adaptive Curriculum’s Activity Object, “Make a Telescope: See the Moon.”

BadAstronomy.com. “Fox TV and the Apollo Moon Hoax“ (Air Date: February 13, 2001)

Mythbusters Episode 104: “NASA Moon Landing” (Air Date: August 27, 2008)

Redzero. “MoonHoax”