Q. When referring to the US Army Corps of Engineers, in saying “the Corps of Engineers” and “the Corps,” how should the shortened forms be capitalized? Should “the Corps of Engineers” be in initial caps and “the corps” be in lowercase?
A. CMOS includes the following examples among the forty or so listed at paragraph 8.112:
Army Corps of Engineers; the corps
United States (or US) Army; the army
United States Army Signal Corps; the Signal Corps or the signal corps
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
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.)
Q. In the phrase “federal constitutional law,” should the “c”
in “constitutional” be capitalized? I say no, but a coworker says yes.
A. You are right. The “Constitution,” referring to the US Constitution, is capitalized.
The adjective “constitutional” is never capitalized.
Q. I am writing a text and need help with one thing. I checked your Q&A and didn’t see anything on this so I’ll ask here. Do government offices and bureaus need to be capitalized? For example, the Wireless Bureau of the FCC, or can it be listed in a sentence as the wireless bureau of the FCC? Thanks!
A. According to the examples given in CMOS 8.63, 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.
Q. I am unable to find a ruling on state nicknames in my Chicago manual. Am I overlooking it? Is it “aloha state,” “Aloha state,” or “Aloha State”?
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 CMOS 8.48, popular names for places and epithets are usually capitalized. See that paragraph for examples.
Q. Should I capitalize “the states” when used alone (referring to the United States)?
I’m copyediting a novel in which the author capitalizes “the States”
when used alone. I think it would be lowercased.
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.”