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Not much action around the forum lately, so I'll start this thread on a topic that's bugged me for some time. I know the style manuals all prescribe non-capitalization of the seasons: spring, summer, fall (autumn in the UK), winter. And that's the way I do it for clients. The exception, of course, comes when the season is part of a proper noun (Winter Olympics, Spring Semester). But in my blog I usually capitalize the seasons (likewise Sun & Moon). All are special entities (to me) when I write about weather or astronomy, and I want to convey that enhanced meaning to my readers. I'm a descriptivist.
Then I stumbled on this discussion. The question is asked: Why are the seasons not proper nouns? They all "name a specific thing" ... the criterion for a proper noun. The seasons are precisely defined mathematically. Why should the seasons be treated differently than March or Tuesday?
Interestingly, many of the commenters said they were taught in school to capitalize the seasons. I not sure what I was taught, but I think it was to capitalize.
All due respect, and all that, but I don't see how spring (or Spring) is any more a specific thing than dog or sodium or baseball is. There have been at least two of said season every year (Why not Year? Just as specific, just as well defined.), one per hemisphere, times however many years our planet or any other with axial tilt has orbited a star; so, several billion of said season just on Terra – not very specific. Or are we talking about the concept of Spring? How is that more a proper noun than white pine or cholera? I see it as an ordinary, common noun, no matter how truly awesome it is. The "I was taught" argument comes up a lot in language discussions, as does the question of logic. I have come to the conclusion that neither carries much weight in how our language works, and that ultimately we must satisfy either ourselves or our editors, both of whom are going to be wrong according to somebody.
Time for lunch!
Tromboniator asked: Or are we talking about the concept of Spring? How is that more a proper noun than white pine or cholera?
Disclaimer: I'm predisposed to capitalizing the seasons, but was hoping for some feedback. And you, sir, have addressed the crux of the biscuit. I'll use a curly left bracket to approximate the symbol for "is a member of the set" ...
We have to admit that: spring { (seasons in the year)
Likewise: white pine { (types of conifers)
And: cholera { (diseases)
So you raise a good question. Why is one noun more proper than the other? Conventions exist, but it can't be just a matter of sets and members. All the definitions I've seen for proper noun are open-ended. The only consistency is a requirement for specificity (the definition of which is no help).
It seems to me that the number of members in the set should be a factor. There are only 4 seasons, 7 days, 12 months. But there are thousands of trees, and millions of bacteria. Does that not lend unique specificity to the seasons?
Our friend from Arizona informs us that Autumn is the rightpondian equivalent of fall. I had always assumed that Autumn was high-class, and fall was rural, much like in farm country, we have woods, while ones that are managed professionally are forests. And I never could understand why fall and spring became autumn and spring rather than autumn and vern, to match the names of the equinoxes.
I have slowly been furnishing this apartment, and having difficulty with the clock radios in the bedroom and kitchen. They are digital, and the instructions that came with them use type smaller than legal size to explain how to set them. The one in the bedroom alarms daily at noon, and there seems to be no way to turn the alarm off entirely, just a way to silence it until noon the next day. I managed to adjust every other timepiece in the house (two computers, 1 tablet, one television, three wall clocks and a microwave) in 15 minutes, total, and 13 of those 15 minutes were spent changing batteries and trying to get the wallclocks back on their nails.
But I've decided to modify my rant about daylight time. I used to run an edirial, the same one. at the start and end of daylight time, pointing out that we lose an hour in the spring and it isn't returned until the fall, making people fractious all summer. It would be SO much nicer if we were to skip the change one spring, just once, and insatead of being short of sleep every summer, we'd have extra sleep all winter.
But I'm ready to eliminate time zones altogether. Think of all TV shows that advertise 9 PM, 8 Central. The military runs on Zulu, and nobody ever gets confused about whether a conference call is ar 9 o'clock Mew York time, California time or St. Louis time. Do I hare call Honolulu, or will Bessie be asleep?
I used to live in one time zone, and get my TV from another. Many people got to a meting an hour early or late. And we'd never have to adjust clocks. I would imagine that eventuallt clocks would simply de 4-hour clocks, but nobody would discard 2-hour clocks
And it makes more sense than most political planks in this election year.
tromboniator said
All due respect, and all that, but I don't see how spring (or Spring) is any more a specific thing than dog or sodium or baseball is. There have been at least two of said season every year (Why not Year? Just as specific, just as well defined.), one per hemisphere, times however many years our planet or any other with axial tilt has orbited a star; so, several billion of said season just on Terra – not very specific. Or are we talking about the concept of Spring? How is that more a proper noun than white pine or cholera? I see it as an ordinary, common noun, no matter how truly awesome it is. The "I was taught" argument comes up a lot in language discussions, as does the question of logic. I have come to the conclusion that neither carries much weight in how our language works, and that ultimately we must satisfy either ourselves or our editors, both of whom are going to be wrong according to somebody.
Time for lunch!
These same arguments can be made for months or days. It all comes down to what is the conventional way of doing this. The fact that anyone was once taught to do it a particular way indicates that it *probably* was a conventional way of doing it sometime in the past and that convention has changed. I can't argue for right or wrong but changing conventions causes confusion. (* I said probably because it has been known for teachers to arbitrarily pass along rules that were not true. I don't think that is so in this case.)
Some folks consider other than conventions though. Something else must account for Acts and Things in this:
levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do
(Note- Things might've taken cue from the capitalized nouns, but the same can not be said of Acts.)
Emphasis is most likely it. But then why always just nouns? Perhaps aesthetic.
RobertB observed: Mostly it’s a visual device to turn up the sound volumes in your head.
Indeed, that's a good way to look at it. The capital letter grabs the eye and yells at you. It's not so much a matter of punctuation rules as it is of Style. Especially in legal documents like the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
[EDIT] More on legal documents, and their peculiar style of all caps for some words, in this discussion.
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