Answer: Muggle/Wizarding capitalization

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

immortalje wants to know: In the example "the Wizarding/Muggle world," what words should be capitalized?

Fortunately, Harry Potter is a book fandom, so we have a written source.

As much as J.K. Rowling's universe overlaps with our own, her books are still fantasy books and, as all fantasy authors do, she created the rules for the bits she made up. So, diving into Rowling's text, I see that Dumbledore wields a Put-Outer to extinguish lights, Floos are distinguishable from ordinary flues, and a wizard or witch might be a Metamorphmagus. Yet brooms are still brooms, even if they fly, though their make might be Cleansweep or Firebolt.

For our reader's particular question, Rowling uses "wizarding world" and "Muggle world." Follow the canon author's precedent.

Comments

[alethiaxx.livejournal.com]

Potterwords (http://community.livejournal.com/potterwords/9493.html) is a great reference for HP canon spelling/capitalization, if anyone's interested. :)

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Ooo, much faster than flipping through the novels! Thank you.

[immortalje]

Somehow I never managed to find it in the books when I remembered to check and the different precedent doesn't really help as I had hoped for a simple rule to help me remember if it's capitalized.

I guess the only help will be bookmarking this post as an easier check up. Thanks for the answer!
And thanks to alethiaxx for the link.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

I'm very glad alethiaxx had that link, because it can be difficult to find individual words buried in seven books.

Here are two ways to think about the example of wizarding vs. Muggle that might help:

1) The magical inhabitants accept the wizarding world they live in as easily as fish swim in water--nothing special about it. But the Muggle world is as strange and exotic to them as any foreign culture. Mr. Weasely has as much trouble pronouncing a Muggle word like "electricity" as one might have pronouncing a Czech or Chinese word.

2) JKR's made-up words tend to be capitalized. Even though our world doesn't really have magic, we acknowledge "wizard" as a word in the dictionary. "Muggle," however, was a purely JKR invention. This holds true for Flue, Metamorphagus, and her other inventions as well. Still, check the books or Potterwords website to be sure.

[papertowns.livejournal.com]

I was editing a friend's Harry Potter story and was unsure about this. Thanks for the clarification!

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

I always have to pause and think about it, even when just writing recs!

[szaleniec1000.livejournal.com]

Belated thanks for this. If it helps, here's (http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b234/rsm109/wizardingworld.jpg) an image illustrating the canon (un-)capitalisation of "wizarding world" that I used in a review when I finally got sick of that mistake.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

\o/ Very convenient to have at hand!