In some websites, I have noticed that first letter ofthe definite article before the word “Queen” is always capitalized, even in the middle of a sentence.
An example (that I’m making up) could be: “It is an honour for The Queen to visit this humble town.”
Why is the definite article always capitalized? Are there any other instances where this is done?
WRS
I don’t know which websites you’re referring to, but a look at the BBC, CNN and The Times shows that none of them do this (and it’s a lower-case ‘t’ in The Times’ Style Guide).
One example is the official website of the British Monarchy. This page is a good example.
One quote from another website: “We welcome you on behalf of The Queen, Government, Parliament and People of the United Kingdom and on behalf of the local authority to British citizenship which confers the right to participate fully in British society.”
WRS
I’m not really sure… perhaps it’s simply because she is always known as “The Queen”, not simply “Queen”. I’m not making sense here… I mean The [one and only] Queen [of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth], as opposed to A Queen [of which we have many].
I noticed that GorillaMan wrote “The Times” and not “the Times” as well - the name of the newspaper is The Times, not Times…
Still, as GorillaMan pointed out, not everyone does capitalise the T.
I would never capitalise the “T”.
The general rule is that you only capitalise “The” when it is an actual part of the title of a film, book, place etc.
So it’s “The Times” but “the Financial Times”, because the latter does not include “The” in its masthead; “The Mail on Sunday” but “the Daily Mail”; and (just to be contrary) “The Independent” but “the Independent on Sunday”. Over the Atlantic you have, “The Washington Post” but “the New York Post”; “The New York Times” but “the Washington Times”. Silly, isn’t it? 
Similarly with hotels, “the Bellagio” but “The Lanesborough”.
Elizabeth II’s title is “Queen”, not “The Queen”, so you wouldn’t capitalise it any more than you’d talk say “We were visited by The President George W. Bush.”
(Actually, in the house style I use, you would only capitalise “President” when it is part of the name, e.g. “President Bush”. If you are writing, say, “the president of the USA” or “the president visited Dallas, Texas”, you would lower-case it. The Queen, on the other hand, always gets a capital “Q”. But that is purely a matter of style.)
One might also wonder why “People” is capitalized. Is “People of the United Kingdom” an actual entity, as opposed to “people” in general?
I’m not sure how official the rule is, but often I see
The <something> - meaning the one and the only
the <something> - meaning a particular one of several possibilities.
Elvis is The King of Rock and Roll.
Bonno is the Irish singer on tonight’s show.
Just overblown self-importance, I guess. I don’t have my passport to hand, but I seem to remember the inside cover being full of this spurious and random capitalisation: “'Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State Requests and Requires in the name of Her Majesty all those Whom it may concern to allow the Bearer to pass freely without Let or Hindrance…”
Washington Post is an acceptable and common shortening of the name The Washington Post. Same with the other examples. This being the case, even in the examples given, I would often not capitalize the “the,” depending on how it’s being used. If it’s being used as part of the name, then, maybe capitalize it. If it’s just being used as a definite article, then, no.
For example:
Yechh. I would never capitalize “the” in these cases.
*Originally Posted by Colophon
The general rule is that you only capitalise “The” when it is an actual part of the title of a film, book, place etc.
So it’s “The Times” but “the Financial Times”, because the latter does not include “The” in its masthead; “The Mail on Sunday” but “the Daily Mail”; and (just to be contrary) “The Independent” but “the Independent on Sunday”. Over the Atlantic you have, “The Washington Post” but “the New York Post”; “The New York Times” but “the Washington Times”. Silly, isn’t it?*
This was a good review for me, because when I read the first post I had no clue what to say to help. I really thought it was always the Queen. … :smack:
Except in the Court Circular, which follows the Palace’s rules.
Spot-checking on The Times Digital Archive suggests that The Times has always used ‘the Queen’. It even did so in the Court Circular in the nineteenth century.
However, having said that, my hunch would still be that ‘The Queen’ does derive from nineteenth-century printing styles. Older books did sometimes single out the monarch for special treatment. The extreme form was to use ‘THE KING’ or ‘THE QUEEN’.
But it is not just the/The Queen that the Palace refers to as ‘The’. Consider this, the most recent Buckingham Palace press release. It has ‘The Queen’, but also ‘The Duke of Edinburgh’, ‘The Countess of Wessex’, ‘The Duchess of Gloucester’ and ‘The Duke of Kent’. That I would expect. More surprising is that they refer to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in the middle of a sentence as ‘The Master of The Queen’s Music’. On the other hand, it’s ‘the Chapel Royal’.
No. 10 does use ‘The Queen’, but it’s lower-case for other members of the Royal Family, such as ‘the Prince of Wales’. See here and here.
It would interesting to know when the Royal Household adopted ‘The’ as its house style. However, I can think of no quick way of finding out. The best approach would probably be to establish when the style used by the Court Circular changed, but even that would be time-consuming.
The general trend in all print media is a trend away from capitalisation - you can find differences in newspapers from twenty, fifty and a hundred years ago. The Queen isn’t the only one that would get the all-caps treatment - THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER and others would also get it.
“the” is part of the title. hrh the prince of wales has 2 sons; prince william of wales, and prince henry of wales.
when the wales divorced, diana lost “hrh” and “the.” she went from: hrh the princess of wales, to diana, princess of wales.
when eliz. ii took the throne her mother went from: “her majesty the queen” to “her majesty queen eliz.”
This was a unique situation, and a unique solution was found. As with the Princess Consort-to-be. And as with the Prince Consort a couple of centuries ago.