RE. Capitalizing proper nouns

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

     Bill Burns asked <paraphrase> about capitalizing proper nouns, but
     used an incorrect example. "Employee" isn't a proper noun, unless you
     consider my correct name to be "Editor" instead of Geoff. Thus, you
     could say the "Employee Department" (I wouldn't, but you could), but
     not "this note applies to all Employees". If the word was part of a
     full title (e.g., the "Employee Guide to E-mail Etiquette"), and if
     you capitalize all words in your titles, then it becomes part of a
     compound proper noun (i.e., a single title with multiple words) and is
     thus capitalized. Rule of thumb: would the word be capitalized on its
     own? If not, it's not a proper noun. As another example, I live and
     work in "eastern Canada" (note the lower case E), but if I wrote about
     two regions, one to the east and one to the west, and chose to name
     each one, I could say "Eastern Canada and Western Canada are...". I
     could, but I wouldn't be required to do so, since this is giving
     artificial importance to the adjectives (eastern and western).

     Final note: Capitalizing the adjectives is often done, sarcastically,
     to emphasize the self-importance of an individual. For example, "His
     Royal Plentipotentiary High Muckamuck Charged With Affairs of State".

     --Geoff Hart   geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
     #8^{)}