# realtors, sorry, "Realtors"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realtors-sorry-realtors/512971>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 7, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realtors-sorry-realtors/512971 "2009-10-07T19:47:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realtors-sorry-realtors/512971/21 "2009-10-08T15:07:07Z")

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> [@Contrapuntal](#):
>
> Jump off a brudge? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
> 
> For that matter, what the heck kind of spell checker allows “brudge”?

You’re assuming that everyone _uses_ spellcheckers. I certainly don’t, can’t stand them.

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**Author:** ![davekhps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@davekhps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davekhps)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realtors-sorry-realtors/512971/22 "2009-10-08T15:11:56Z")

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> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> Thanks to the AP for not buying into this self-promoting nonsense.
> 
> There are umpteen professions requiring a great deal more training and continuing education than real estate agents to maintain professional status, and it’s difficult to think of any that demand Capitalization for the preferred Title.
> 
> I’m OK with Lipitor (at least, if they didn’t advertise so much) but the insistence on capitalizing realtor is silly. Even those folks who morphed from undertaker to mortician to funeral director in an attempt to look stylish and important didn’t go nuts over capitalizing themselves.

Probably because none of them are trademarks. You can’t use Xerox as xerox for the same reason-- it’s a brand name. Doesn’t mean that you can’t do whatever you want in your personal use, but a style standard is a style standard, and trademarks are respected.

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**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realtors-sorry-realtors/512971/23 "2009-10-15T04:39:26Z")

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Dumpster is the same way. Capitalized.

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**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realtors-sorry-realtors/512971/24 "2009-10-15T16:10:48Z")

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> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> There are umpteen professions requiring a great deal more training and continuing education than real estate agents to maintain professional status, and it’s difficult to think of any that demand Capitalization for the preferred Title.

You are missing the point. Not all real estate agents are Realtors. Only those who have passed the National Association of Realtors qualifications are allowed to use the term, which the NAR has registered as a trademark and is therefore properly capped. The generic, lowercased equivalent is “real estate agent.”

If the Funeral Directors Association (made-up group) registered the term “Bodystuffer” as a trademark and allowed only its qualified members to use the term (capitalized), that would be a parallel situation. But no one is capping “undertaker” because it is a generic term.

I’m reminded of the person who wrote in to Ann Landers all indignant about the constant capping of AIDS in the media. “What’s so important about AIDS that it has to be all caps? You don’t read about someone having CANCER.”

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