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Re: Consensus on capitalization?



STEVE . . .

To me, capitalization--like punctuation--is supposed to clarify the 
meaning of the written word. The strongest argument in favor of 
capitalization is illustrated by the following kind of statement:

"The rookery was filled with adult great blue herons and little blue herons."

Does this mean there were adult Great Blue Herons and adult Little 
Blue Herons. Or does it mean that there were Great Blue Herons of 
various ages?

If capitalization is used for the bird's names, the meaning becomes 
crystal-clear, as follows:

"The rookery was filled with adult Great Blue Herons and Little Blue Herons."

Besides, according to well-established international protocol, the 
common names of birds are PROPER names and should be capitalized, 
just like international protocol dictates that a genus is capitalized 
and a species is NOT capitalized and both are written in italics.

I'm grateful for these protocols, because they allow us to be more 
exact in communicating our thoughts about birds.


Best wishes,

BILL

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>Here's a question that has been nagging me for some time.  What is 
>the accepted
>method of writing the name of a bird, with capitalization or without?
>(i.e should it be Blackburnian Warbler or blackburnian warbler?) 
>I've seen both
>in usage, I tend to lean toward the first but don't know if it is correct or
>not.
>Certainly birds named using a proper noun would always be 
>capitalized (i.e. Cape
>May warbler (or Warbler) and MacGillivray's Warbler).
>I think I've figured out that hyphenated names (like Red-eyed Vireo as opposed
>to Red-Eyed Vireo) would only have the word preceding the hyphen capitalized,
>but could be wrong here as well.
>
>Any education is appreciated.
>
>Best,
>Steve Shultz
>Cary, NC
-- 
P.S. The website for Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History 
now has a search engine that is accessible from the main Table of 
Contents page.


**********

BILL HILTON JR., "The Piedmont Naturalist"
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
1432 DeVinney Road
York, South Carolina 29745
USA

e-mail: <hilton@hiltonpond.org>

Voice: (803) 684-5852

eFax: (503) 218-0845

Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History is a 501(c)(3) 
non-profit research and education organization, so all in-kind or 
monetary gifts to Operation RubyThroat and the Center are 
tax-deductible. Please visit our websites:

Hilton Pond:  <http://www.hiltonpond.org>

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"Never trust a person too lazy to get up for sunrise or too busy to 
watch the sunset."

						BHjr.

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