For many years Feathered Photography’s most popular post, based on number of views, has been A Guide To Aging Bald Eagles. But based on strong circumstantial evidence (so far I’ve resisted upgrading MonsterInsights for $99 per year in order to get precise numbers), that honor now goes to another post, Capitalization Of Bird Common Names, published almost exactly seven years ago.
A quick review of that post revealed that it needed some serious tweaking so today I’m rerunning it after correcting some usage errors, modifying the formatting and changing the title.
I try hard to write coherently and correctly but it doesn’t come easily for me and I regularly make mistakes. After all, I taught biology, not English, and I’m really just a semi grown-up farm boy from Montana.
But when your writing is put out there for the world to see, you want to compose it as well as possible. At least I do. Thankfully, I have a couple of friends who occasionally message me privately immediately after I’ve published a blog post and point out any glaring grammatical or usage errors so I can correct them before they’ve been seen by most of my readers. Thank you, Sue and Shari.
I’m not anal about it but I do like to get it as close to right as possible.
One of the issues I struggled with at the beginning of my blogging career was proper capitalization of bird common names. For generations the general rule by convention and in many style guides has been that common names of mammals, birds, insects, fish and other life forms are not capitalized. It was grizzly bear, not Grizzly Bear.
But with birds I’d often see it both ways so initially I was really confused. Most media outlets don’t capitalize common names of birds and many generally trusted online resources, such as Daily Writing Tips, say they shouldn’t be capitalized:
- ” animal names are not capitalized (“I spotted a red-tailed hawk,” not “I spotted a Red-Tailed Hawk”), except when an element of the name is a proper noun, as in “Steller’s jay” and “Siberian tiger.”
Few technical writing errors drive editors and others to distraction like superfluous capitalization does – to the point that they’ve given the practice its own name, “capitalitis”. They’ve even assigned a causative agent to the condition and given it a scientific name, Uppercasis ludicrosii. Gotta admit, I like their humor even if I don’t agree with them when it comes to common names of specific animal and plant species, birds especially.
The tug-of-war between advocates of title case (capitalization) and sentence case (non-capitalization) of bird common names has taken a turn recently.
Yellow Warbler
I’m generally familiar with the rules about the differences between proper capitalization of common and proper nouns but writing “I spotted a yellow warbler” just doesn’t cut it. Many species of warblers are yellow, so what species was the bird – a Prothonotary Warbler? a Wilson’s Warbler? a Canada Warbler? Or one of the many other warbler species that are mostly yellow? All that original statement tells the reader is that the warbler was yellow.
But writing “I spotted a Yellow Warbler” specifies the exact species. “She saw a white-throated sparrow” doesn’t say squat because there are several sparrows with white throats. But “She saw a White-throated Sparrow” lets readers know the precise species with no confusion or equivocation.
After many years of almost bloody fighting over that distinction, most respected birding resources have taken the same path and are now capitalizing common names of birds (though the same thing hasn’t happened, at least not yet, with many other organisms such as mammals and plants). A few cases in point:
- Every one of my bird field guides, including Sibley, National Geographic, Audubon, and the American Museum of Natural History uses title case for bird common names.
- In 2014 Audubon magazine, after what has been described as a “blood bath” involving contentious editors, vice-presidents and ornithologists, adopted title case for their publications and websites.
- As far as I know, all other bird-oriented publications and organizations use title case for birds – including Auk, The American Ornithological Society and others.
However, at about the same time that Audubon decreed for title case, Wikipedia chose the low road and went for sentence case for birds, so that only confuses the matter.
But here at Feathered Photography it’s title case for birds. Always has been and always will be.
Golden Eagle
If vehicles named after birds like Plymouth Roadrunners, Buick Skylarks and Ford Falcons deserve the royal treatment of title case, I’ll be damned if I’ll write the name of this magnificent bird as golden eagle.
On my watch it will always be Golden Eagle.
Ron
Note: Here’s another convention about writing bird names that I always stick to. If there’s a hyphen in a bird name, I never capitalize the word immediately after the hyphen. It’s Red-tailed Hawk, not Red-Tailed Hawk.
Edit: My good friend Jim DeWitt pointed out that there are a few birds (very few in North America but Black-bellied Whistling-Duck is one of them) that have two hyphenated names in their common name. When that happens, the first one isn’t capitalized but the second one is. Here’s how Jim said it.
“I agree with your approach, except that, along with most birding authorities, I capitalize both words in a hyphenated species second name. So Red-billed Nightingale-Thrush. In North American common bird names, the issue doesn’t occur often, but elsewhere it does. Capitalize both words in the second name.”
I might argue that the second name shouldn’t be hyphenated but since it is, I’ll follow that convention.
Fantastic post!! plymouth roadrunner indeed!!
Thanks, Joanne.
Sounds good to me. I would definitely put caps on Golden Eagle.
Judy, glad to finally see one of your comments show up. After the tweaking I did yesterday with WordPress I knew it would but it’s still reassuring to see it.
Me and grammer and spelling never did get along! SO “whatever” as long as I understand it………
Yup, I agree completely on both of your preferred uses. So there, it’s official. Good choice!
“So there, it’s official.”
That’s good enough for me, Mikal. Let’s make it law.
You’ll get no argument from me on these capitalization rules … loved the post, but I’ve gotta say, the reader commentary today is SPARKLING … reminding me the world is not entirely bleak, all “daily news” to the contrary. So thanks to everyone for the day brightener!
I agree with what you said about reader commentary, Chris. And speaking of “reader commentary”, stay tuned for a future post about reader commentary – a post that will have me eating crow.
As a scientist I totally agree with your line of reasoning.
Best wishes from New Zealand.
Thanks for the reinforcement, Gary.
Ron Dudley. Loved and appreciated the earlier post and this one even more. It’s a keeper. Thank you, (not) ron dudley. Heheh.
Thank you, Susan.
You know that I agree with you completely; this has long been an issue for me. For many years, I wrote a monthly column for our local newspaper. I stubbornly refused to use lowercase for the bird names. They always changed my capitalization to lowercase before publishing but I refuse to change!
Many people in western Oregon often talk about the “blue jays” in their backyard. Of course, we don’t have Blue Jays here in Oregon so, in most cases, they’re referring to a California Scrub-Jay. So, here in Oregon, we have blue-colored jays, California Scrub-Jay, and Steller’s Jay, but no genuine Blue Jays. Without capitalizing them, it can be very confusing.
In my years of teaching at the University of Oregon, I always insisted that my students use properly capitalized names. In the case of a bird name with two hyphens in the name, the first hyphen is in the modifier of the bird, for example, Pied-billed, or Rough-winged. The second hyphen is part of the kind of bird it is, such as, Scrub-Jay, or Nightingale-Thrush.
Sorry Dan, for some reason I didn’t see your comment until just now.
I like the points you made in paragraph #2 and #3.
Totally agree. BTW, Kenn Kaufman’s 1997 book, Kingbird Highway, begins with an Editor’s Note regarding capitalizing birds’ names; it clearly states its case for the book with masterful brevity.
i Like Your Post About Capitalization Rules, ron.
On a less flippant note, I do feel that common species names for organisms — not just birds and not just other animals — should be capitalized in many situations. I’m also a fan of capitalizing breed names for dogs, cats, reptiles, chickens, etc. when applicable. I know I’m in the minority; however, like the Oxford Comma, this is a hill on which I’m willing to hit the shift key.
Interesting thought about capitalizing breed names, Marty. I’ll have to think about that one.
TOTALLY with you on this, Ron! Including the word after the hyphen. Thanks! And now, please write a post about how to use apostrophes.
“please write a post about how to use apostrophes.”
Ellen, I have my own learning to do on that subject before I write a post about it.
I get really irritated by the number of errant apostrophes I see around me.
Susan, I think many people believe that words that end with vowels need an apostrophe when you make them plural. At least that’s my observation.
Thank you for the education Ron. I’m sure my capitalization or lack of it has ruffled a few feathers over time !! I now have a rule to go by !!
“I now have a rule to go by.”
Good. Thanks, Gary.
As a 50-year professional editor, trained at Oxford Press (than whom n oone is more hide bound), I was taught that the over-riding rule is “clarity.” That’s why we call the series comma the Oxford comma. And I’m with you 1000 percent on the Ford Falcon/Peregrine Falcon question. Reserving caps for man and his objects is really a high level of hubris. Scientific names are half-way there. – Falco peregrinus, which even Wiki honors. Though recent events tempt me to call us homo non-sapiens and hope we slink off stage-left before it’s too late. Love the Golden picture!
make that “no one” – arrgh.
“Reserving caps for man and his objects is really a high level of hubris.”
Well said, Sallie. And thanks.
Very interesting post Ron. Capitalization is a sign of respect. I agree with your approach. And writing in all caps is considered yelling – very rude. Wikipedia should change – am sure you have written to their editors. Feedback for accuracy is one of their manyras.
‘Mantras’
Thanks, Kathleen. I never wrote to Wikipedia about it. I figured they’d taken their stance and the weren’t about to change it for someone like me.
Very interesting post Ron. I am with you 100% on Golden Eagle and Red-tailed Hawk etc. Glad you mentioned the Steller’s Jay. I wrote to Cornell and maybe Audubon too once regarding the controversy of whether to change the names of those birds who have been named in honor of a person by the discoverer of the bird. I said you should change the name of all birds named in honor of someone, but please never change the name of the Steller Jay that was named for the discoverer Georg Steller. He was a German born naturalist serving on a Russian ship exploring the Arctic in 1741 who was allowed by Vitus Bering just ten hours to explore Kayak Island where he made significant animal and bird discoveries. For an exceptional feat such as that the discoverer truly deserves to have the Jay named for him.
Thank you, Everett. I could be wrong but I’d say, don’t hold your breath about them making an exception for Steller’s Jay.
Great post. Such an interesting read.
With Philadelphia Eagles upper cased, well I rest your case, Ron.
I totally agree with you. I am also going with the AOU folks, as you have already mentioned. You make a good case. I, so far, have not seen a good case for lowercase. What is their reasoning for this?
Boy, you really took a deep dive. I like it. But I have always – long before I ever discovered FP – felt the same as you do on this. And like you, this semi grown-up wrestles with grammar. If I write anything important I have my wife proofread it before finalizing. Mind you, she is from Denmark, so English is her second language. Yea, it can be embarrassing.
Speaking of embarrassing, I have to confess that when I first read the title of this post in my email, I took “Capitalization” to mean monetization, and my brain did a flipflop trying to figure how the heck that could be done. Ah, language!
Ha, monetary capitalization is way out of my league!
First, you’re welcome (!) although I haven’t emailed an editing suggestion in a very long time.
Second, OMG I am in love with whoever coined Uppercasis ludicrosii. I instantly thought of a person whose social media posts are overloaded with text in ALL CAPS which violates just about every rule I can think of and is definitely consistent with the person’s ego-driven and narcissistic personality. You know who I mean, I’m sure.
“You know who I mean, I’m sure.”
I sure as hell do. And I agree with your reasoning.