Can anyone think of an example where the word “navy” is capitalized when it is not the first word of a sentence or part of a proper noun?
I am arguing a point elsewhere on the internet and the other party (a lovely fellow I am sure) maintains “The US Department of Defense told the Navy to go to heck.” is permitted as ‘it is obvious’ we are talking about the US Navy.
What says the hive mind?
(I can’t go to bed! Someone on the Internet is wrong!)
Ditto what Munch said.
Why would it be capitalized if it is not the first word of a sentence and is also not part of a proper noun?
For some reason my writing books (I am an English teacher) capitalizes ‘Internet,’ I have picked up the dirty habit.
How is ‘navy’ a proper noun all by its lonesome? The world has many navies.
Standard usage disagrees with you here.
Because it’s referring to a specific navy, the US Navy, and not just any navy. At least, that’s what capitalizing the “n” in “navy” conveys to me.
For example, Merriam-Webster offers:
Or from dictionary.com:
Or here’s some capitalization rules:
This is more an issue of style, though, so consult your style guide.
Standard usage some places would disagree. AP, Chicago, and NYT style guides all (I believe) still use the capital I, but I think most commonwealth country style guides have abandoned it at this point. I recall that CNN officially changed their house standard to the lower case last year.
For informal writing I tend to use the lower case just because I’m not writing to a standard and the capital I is more a convention than a logical rule.
Because by capitalizing it, you’re saying you’re referring to one specific navy - *the *[US] Navy. If you left it uncapitalized, it would still be correct, but referring to some unknown, unspecified navy.
[QUOTE=friedo]
Standard usage disagrees with you here.
[/QUOTE]
I’ll take your word for it - but I very rarely see “internet” capitalized. I don’t see any particular reason for it to be, and suspect most style guides will send it back to the lowercased world in short order.
It’s clear from the context that it’s the United States Navy being referred to.
Consider this. Would you feel this is a properly capitalized sentence? “The White House told the Department of Defense to quit picking on the Navy.” There are lots of white houses and departments of defense and navies in the world but the context makes it obvious which ones we are talking about.
Maybe it’s the use of the word “the” that identifies the proper noun?
They told the navy to go to heck. This identifies it as a specific navy. Even though I might not figure out whether they were talking about their own navy or someone else’s navy, it is still a specific one, and is therefore capitalized.
However, if the line had omitted the definite article (“The US Department of Defense told a navy to go to heck.”) then it would not be capitalized.
Just throwing out an idea for discussion…
I don’t think that’s the case. “The navy” can be used as a term for the concept without referring to a specific navy. For example, if I wrote “young men have been joining the navy for centuries in order to see the world” I’m not naming any specific national navy.
FWIW, I just consulted my Associated Press Stylebook, and here’s what it has to say:
However, as I said before, this is a style issue. I don’t have the Chicago Manual of Style, but I believe it does not capitalize “navy” when used alone, even if used in reference to US forces. If somebody with a copy could check, it should be paragraph 8.111.
Thank you all, especially pulykamell who gave us such good links. At least some sources allow (but do not require) a capital letter.
I am puzzled by the idea that one must look outside the sentence to find the referent to determine how to punctuate the sentence.
Let me noodle over it.
Wow. I had no idea that Internet was being demoted. I’ve used it that way forever. From what I can tell, it comes from back when internet was still used for smaller networks of computers. Nowadays, either intranet or just plain network is most commonly used for these.
Still, it just looks weird to me, so I’ll keep it up until the AP changes it.