Answer: Capitalizing People's Titles in a Sentence

[chomiji]

level_head asks "How should this sentence be capitalized: 'The Colonel should be here in a moment'?" Our old friends from Star Trek (the original series) will do their best to help us out.

Unfortunately, this is one of those "it depends" subjects.

The Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook, two of the more common sets of writing guidelines in use in the United States, would lowercase a person's title in this situation:

"I take it that you had some news about Admiral Okeke," said Spock.

"The Soryu was reported missing, presumed lost. The admiral was on that ship," said Kirk, bleakly.

Notice that when the title is used with the officer's name, as in the first sentence, it's capitalized. Chicago lays this all out concisely for an impressive range of types of titles, such as:

"Chester W. Nimitz, Fleet Admiral; Admiral Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet; the admiral ...
Rabbi Stephen Wise; the rabbi ...
Elizabeth II, queen of England; Queen Elizabeth; the queen of England; the queen ... "

However, another common way of handling the situation - used, for example, in the U.S. government's GPO Style Manual - is to capitalize the title whenever it refers to a specific person:

"I take it that you had some news about Admiral Okeke," said Spock.

"The Soryu was reported missing, presumed lost. The Admiral was on that ship," said Kirk, bleakly.

This is the style that was used in one of our earlier articles, Capitalization of Military and Other Titles.

When we return to the original question, we can see there is a choice to be made. level_head can use either

"The colonel should be here in a moment."

or

"The Colonel should be here in a moment."

So which style should you use in your story? You will have to decide for yourself - but remember, as in all cases where there is a choice between styles, be consistent. Pick one way of handling the situation and stick to it. Consistency in these sorts of details helps make the mechanics of your writing fade into the background and lets the plot and the characters shine.

 

Comments

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

This topic will ALWAYS BE RELEVANT.

(Especially for the Stargate fandom.)

Thanks! :D

[chomiji]

I had a moment of panic on this one ... military stuff again! I like it, but my example fandoms are so obscure! Then I realized that the topic was narrow enough that I could get away with memories of long ago TV.

[xpaperplanex.livejournal.com]

This is really helpful, thank you!

[chomiji]

I'm glad it's useful! Thanks for reading!

[pronker]

lets the plot and the characters shine.

Very much a propos to the Star Wars fandom, too, with its General Grievous and Admiral Ackbar, but also to the unique SW bits: Master, and Padawan, usually capitalized whenever used. Perhaps the jury is still out on the Force, as in, is it an entity with will, or not? 'Will of the Force' seems to make it sentient.

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

Then again, the Force is treated by its followers (on both sides) with an essentially religious level of reverence, so it makes sense to capitalise it the way believers do when referring to God.

[pronker]

Yes, the respect given to Deity shows up in the GFFA's fandom writings and also, the Dark Side is uncapitalized according to Wookiepedia, though I just can't do that. It simply sets up the dichotomy so well, ha. Sometimes stories have 'Gods!' as an ejaculation, or even 'Ghods!', but since it is an ejaculation and thus one-word as a sentence, it doesn't add to any capitalization knowledge.

[chomiji]

My own feeling would be that the Force, as a unique power, would indeed be treated as a god or similar conceptual construct for capitalization. The Force is also its proper name, not its title, so that also argues for capitalization: the Colossus of Rhodes, the Matterhorn, the Milky Way, etc.