Capitalization, Titles

A. Actually, “the States” is capped when it means the United States. It’s only when referring to individual states collectively that you should lowercase: “Each of the states elects two senators,” as opposed to “I’m going back to the States.”

A. Write “Aloha State.” It’s essentially a proper name because it is a nickname for the proper entity Hawaii (nicknames for people are capitalized). And according to paragraph 8.47, popular names for places and epithets are usually capitalized. See that paragraph for examples.

A. According to CMOS, 16th ed., 8.60,

Personal, national, or geographical names, and words derived from such names, are often lowercased when used with a nonliteral meaning. For example, the cheese known as “gruyère” takes its name from a district in Switzerland but is not necessarily from there; “swiss cheese” (lowercase s) is a cheese that resembles Swiss emmentaler (which derives its name from the Emme River valley).

Among the examples included at 8.60 is “scotch whisky.” But in your example, you are right to capitalize “Scotch” in “Scotch whisky” because you are opposing “Scotch” to “Irish.”

A. According to the examples given in CMOS 8.62, official names of administrative bodies are capitalized, whereas just part of the name is not. For example:

The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau today set guidelines for broadcast frequencies at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. The bureau plans to publish these guidelines within the next seven days.

Note that subsequent mentions of “the bureau” are lowercased. You might also do this:

The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) today set guidelines for broadcast frequencies at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. The WTB plans to publish these guidelines within the next seven days.

Note also that the official name is the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. If you were to refer simply to the “wireless bureau of the FCC,” it would have to be lowercase, as when you say only “the bureau,” because you are not giving the official title of the organization.

A. You are right. The “Constitution,” referring to the US Constitution, is capitalized. The adjective “constitutional” is never capitalized.

A. The Chicago Manual of Style includes the following examples among the forty or so listed at paragraph 8.111:

Army Corps of Engineers; the corps

United States (or US) Army; the army

United States Coast Guard; the Coast Guard or the coast guard

United States Marine Corps; the Marine Corps or the marine corps; the US Marines; a marine

United States Navy; the navy

United States Signal Corps; the Signal Corps or the signal corps

The terms “army” and “navy” when used alone are considered to be generic, whereas, for example, the “Army Corps of Engineers” (or “Corps of Engineers”) and the “Marine Corps” are more specialized by virtue of being unique subbranches within the US armed forces. “Coast Guard” and “Signal Corps,” on the same principle, are often capitalized, but any of these may be lowercased if used alone. “Corps” becomes generic when used by itself. (All these terms are routinely capitalized in the military’s own documentation—a matter of institutional pride.)

A. Correct headline-style capitalization as defined by The Chicago Manual of Style would call for capital “Its.” All nouns—pronouns included—get capitalized according to our rule (see paragraph 8.157). And while we are flattered that the American publisher is following our guidelines to a tee, you do have a point. An opposite problem was encountered many years ago with our own publication of the novel A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean. According to our rules, “through,” a preposition, would not get a capital “t” in titles. Somebody here objected to this (on the grounds of emphasis and prominence), so we capitalized it on the cover and in promotional materials.

Nonetheless, those who write about Maclean’s book—or list it in their documentation—should submit to their editors. We’d write A River Runs through It. And we’d capitalize your Its.

A. “Conference” should be capitalized only if it is in fact part of the official title of the conference. So,

the Fifteenth Computers and Writing Conference; the conference; that conference on computers and writing

Official titles are capitalized, whereas generic terms used to talk about the official conference are not.

A. You may be happy to know that the University of Chicago Press considers almost all titles to be generic unless they are used as part of a name. Practically no one gets special treatment—neither the pope nor the president of the United States. But the recommendations in The Chicago Manual of Style apply for the most part to descriptive and analytical texts. Excess capitalization hinders an argument’s clarity.

We’d allow an exception for something like your directory, where corporate politics might be a factor:

In promotional or ceremonial contexts such as a displayed list of donors in the front matter of a book or a list of corporate officers in an annual report, titles are usually capitalized even when following a personal name. Exceptions may also be called for in other contexts for reasons of courtesy or diplomacy. (8.19)

So though we at the press share your disdain for capitalization, please consider the exceptions and decide where your directory fits.

A. In the sixteenth edition of CMOS, we make a distinction between the Cold War (i.e., between the United States and the former Soviet Union) and any old cold war (e.g., between feuding families). See 8.74.