The GrammarPhile Blog

• the president; George Washington, first president of the United States; President Ford; the presidency; presidential; the Taft administration; Chandrika Kumaratunga, president of Sri Lanka; President Kumaratunga or Mrs. Kumaratunga
• the vice president; Joseph Biden, vice president of the United States; Vice President Biden; vice-presidential duties; Jorge Quiroga, vice president of Bolivia; Vice President Quiroga
• the secretary of state; Hillary Rodham Clinton, secretary of state; Secretary of State Clinton or Secretary Clinton
• the senator; the senator from West Virginia; Senator Robert C. Byrd; Senators Byrd and Trent; Sen. John Glenn, Democrat from Ohio (or D-OH)
• the representative; the congressman; the congresswoman; Henry Hyde, representative from Illinois or congressman from Illinois; Congressman Hyde or Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) or Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.); Maxine Waters, representative from California; Congresswoman Waters; the congresswoman or the representative; Representatives Hyde and Waters
• the Speaker; John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives; Speaker Boehner (Speaker is traditionally capitalized)
• the chief justice; [the late] William H. Rehnquist, chief justice of the United States; Chief Justice Rehnquist
• the associate justice; Antonin Kennedy, associate justice; Justice Kennedy; Justices Kennedy and Thomas
• the chief judge; Henry Tonigan, chief judge; Judge Tonigan
• the ambassador; Philip Lader, ambassador to the Court of St. James's or ambassador to the United Kingdom; Ambassador Lader
• the governor; Ruth Ann Minner, governor of the state of Delaware; Governor Minner
• the mayor; Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago; Mayor Emanuel
• the state senator; Olga Parker, Ohio state senator; the Honorable Olga Parker
• the state representative (same pattern as state senator)
• the governor-general of Canada; the Right Honourable David Johnston
• the minister; Motohisa Furukawa, Japanese economics minister; Mr. Furukawa
• the prime minister; the Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau, former prime minister of Canada; David Cameron, the British prime minister
• the premier (of a Canadian province); the Right Honourable Roy Romanow
• the member of Parliament (UK and Canada); Jane Doe, member of Parliament or, more commonly, Jane Doe, MP (not used as a title preceding the name); Jane Doe, the member for West Hamage
• the chief whip; Tony Yengeni, chief whip of the African National Congress; Yengini
• the foreign secretary (UK); the foreign minister (other nations); the British foreign secretary; the German foreign minister (not used as a title preceding the name)
• the chancellor; Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany; Chancellor Merkel
• the chancellor of the exchequer (UK); George Osborne; Chancellor Osborne
• the Lord Privy Seal (UK; always capitalized)

Our client documents often have names of famous places incorrectly presented. This week's post covers how to properly punctuate names of places and structures. Names of buildings, architecturally or historically significant houses, thoroughfares, monuments, and the like are capitalized. An introductory the, even if part of the name, is not capitalized in running text.

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The following is a guest post by Alexis Bonari.
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If you're in the newspaper business, you know how to properly capitalize headlines. But people writing white papers, press releases, brochures, and even résumés need to know what's right and what's wrong in order to retain the respect and admiration, to say nothing of the trust, of their readers. So take note!

Most style guides call for lower-casing prepositions, articles, and many conjunctions. But there are lots of extenuating circumstances that call for uppercasing those words sometimes. Read on, but first:

- A preposition is a word that could describe your relationship to a cloud: you're in the cloud, under the cloud, above the cloud, around the cloud, by the cloud, before the cloud, after the cloud. These italicized words are prepositions.
- The articles are the, a, and an -- they point out things: the boy, a man.
- Conjunctions join things: and, or, nor, while, etc.

The Chicago Manual of Style says to always capitalize the first and last words of a headline, no matter what. Lowercase prepositions, regardless of length, except when they are stressed (as through in A River Runs Through It), are used adverbially or adjectivally (as up in Look Up, down in Turn Down, on in The On Button, etc.), are used as conjunctions (such as before in Look Before You Leap), or are part of a Latin expression used adjectivally or adverbially (e.g., De Facto, In Vitro, etc.). CMS specifies lowercasing the conjunctions and, but, for, or, nor. Always lowercase to and as.

Examples:

When proofreading or editing documents, we often find that writers are confused about when to capitalize these terms. Here are some rules to follow.