If I am talking about a maple tree, do i capitalize the word 'maple'? Or do I only capitalize 'maple' if I'm talking about a specific kind of maple tree, like a Sugar Maple?
2006-11-12 15:50:48 · 7 answers · asked by mighty_power7 7 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
Definitely leave it down, unless you are writing for a New Age publication that gives all entities of nature a capital letter -- like The Sun was shining brightly, and the Moon had just risen in the East.
In general, though, you only capitalize a noun if it's the proper name of something. So, you'd capitalize the species name: Acer saccharum (should be italics), but I wouldn't capitalize sugar maple, unless perhaps I were writing for a seed catalog. I know Wiki has it capitalized, but I don't think it should be.
There are loads of sugar maples out there, so you don't capitalize it usually. If you had a specific sugar maple that you named Mabel, you might get away with Sugar Mabel, but now we are getting into the territory of the weird (-:.
2006-11-12 15:57:59 · answer #1 · answered by Madame M 7 · 4⤊ 1⤋
I was starting to say that you got it right. However, the Collins Dictionary lists sugar maple without capitalizaton. Wordnet and American Heritage dictionaries also don't capitalize it. Wikipedia does, but hey, it's Wiki. I could go in and edit that, and if the dictionaries support me on it, then it will probably stand.
Only the scientific name is capitalized, "Acer saccharum." Funny thing about the Latin or Greek in the scientific name, just the first part is capitalized. And it's put in italics, only I don't know how to do that in this text box, so I used quotes.
2006-11-12 15:59:08 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Neither maple of sugar maple are proper nouns so neither needs to be capitalized ... unless it's the first word of a sentance.
2006-11-12 17:28:04 · answer #3 · answered by scourgeoftheleft 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
i think you need not capitalize maple trees and you may capitalize sugar maple
2006-11-12 15:56:19 · answer #4 · answered by raj 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
You would capitilize the M in "Sugar Maple", but when you are talking about maple trees in general I can't tell you for sure if you capitilize it, but I am pretty sure that you do.
I'm not an ENG major though! lol
2006-11-12 15:53:44 · answer #5 · answered by moonsmagicdust 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Both "maple" and "sugar maple" should be lowercase.
2006-11-12 16:15:14 · answer #6 · answered by Fall Down Laughing 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
The latter.
2006-11-12 15:53:16 · answer #7 · answered by WindWalker10 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋