Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Kulturvultur said:

My wife is a birdwatcher and at a recent dinner, the tour leader wondered why common bird names (e.g. cardinal) were not capitalized in common literature whereas in the scientific literature, they were. Any thoughts, Grant and Martha?

I'm not Grant or Martha, but I was taught that common nouns should not be capitalized. Perhaps the scientific literature was simply intending to highlight the animals it was referring to.

One of the things I have noticed, since being exposed to so much casual writing via e-mail and such, is that many people think it's important to capitalize most nouns.