April 2, 2009
moon vs. Moon: A Study in Arrant Pedantry
When you write, do you capitalize the word “Moon?” And by this, I mean Earth’s Moon, Luna, the natural satellite of our home planet. Well, believe it or not, some of the longest, most vociferous, and yes – the dumbest – arguments I’ve ever had were over this issue.
In the preface of my book, The Once and Future Moon, I argued over a decade ago that the Moon was one of the largest satellites in the Solar System, our first destination off the Earth and mankind’s future home and thus, deserved the dignity of capitalization. I proceeded to capitalize the word “Moon” ever afterwards, except when I write for the press, which obstinately insists that it should be “moon” and ruthlessly proceeds to change all my brilliant text.
Why do so many editors insist upon this obnoxious practice? Apparently because the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook says so. To quote the black book of AP style directly:
AP capitalizes the proper names of planets, including Earth, stars, constellations, etc., but lowercases sun and moon.
Uh, OK. I guess that settles that. Ordinarily, I like ex cathedra pronouncements about language (Fowler was famous for them), but usually, they tend to have some reasonable basis in grammatical or linguistic fact. If there is such a basis for the “rule” given above, I don’t know what it is. I can speculate on one.
All of the major bodies of our Solar System have Roman (Latin) names – Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, etc. The only exceptions are the objects Earth, Moon, and Sun, whose names are derived from Germanic languages (the Latin equivalents are Terra, Luna, and Sol, respectively). Interestingly, the AP stylebook says to capitalize the Earth but not the Sun and Moon. My guess is that some classically educated nit-picker who was forced to sit through endless hours on the joys of the ablative absolute in Latin class decided that the Roman-named objects of the universe were worthy of linguistic worship, but the vulgar, barbarian Germanic names given to those other three bodies did not deserve to be capitalized.
I beg to differ. All three words are proper nouns; they refer to definite objects, one of which is home to humanity itself and another that soon will be. If these objects do not deserve capitalization, what does?
Simply put, the AP Stylebook is wrong. When referring to “the Moon” – that is, our Moon, Luna, site of Neil Armstrong’s landing in 1969 – the word should be capitalized. When referring to any moon, such as in “the moons of Jupiter”, it becomes a generic descriptor and hence, should not be capitalized. Our Moon is a world with its own history, one intimately entwined with our own. It has the material and energy resources needed to help us bootstrap a true spacefaring capability. It will one day become a second home for humanity.
After being criticized for ending too many sentences with a preposition, Sir Winston Churchill supposedly responded: “This is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.” Whether Churchill said this or not (it is disputed, but it certainly sounds like him), it nicely captures my thoughts on this “controversy.”
Now, if we could just get the BBC to stop writing “Nasa” for “NASA”……
14 Comments »
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I absolutely agree!
The Moon is a specific place, whose beauty and uniqueness deserves capitalization far more than all the little runt satellites of the outer planets!
Comment by Chuck Wood — April 2, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
Most of the questionable decisions I’ve found in AP style (e.g. lower-casing “the President”) appear to be based not on grammar or other logic but simply upon type size. A capital _M_ takes up more room in the line of type; newspapers want to pack as many words into the column-inch as possible; ergo they’ll use the smaller alphanumeric character, in this case the little _m_.
And although it could be argued that there is only one true “moon” and all others are merely satellites (since their period of revolution is not a month), I would still like to see this exclusivity emphasized with a capital _M_.
Comment by Michael Spence — April 2, 2009 @ 8:56 pm
I capitalized Moon in my atlas, and (if my memory is correct, it was a while ago) I checked the preface to your book before deciding to do so. As it coincided with my own preference, it had to be right!
Comment by Phil Stooke — April 4, 2009 @ 2:01 pm
Well said. I always capitalize “Moon” and find it pet-peevy if I see it with a lower-case m. All other satellites have proper names — just as ours used to. First it was the Greek Goddess Selene, then the Roman (Latin) Luna. The idea that we’ve added an article to it, making it “the Moon” doesn’t make it any less a prominent satellite deserving of a proper name.
Comment by Pillownaut — April 4, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
Thanks for this well-stated post. I got into an argument with a colleague once on the subject of whether “martian” should be capitalized. I argued that it should not because it is an adjective, just like “lunar.” What is your position?
Comment by Brian Shiro — April 10, 2009 @ 7:52 pm
Brian,
I agree with you. A lowercase “martian” is an adjective. When “Martian” is capitalized, it is a noun and refers to an inhabitant of Mars, as in “Marvin is a Martian.”
Comment by Dr. Paul D. Spudis — April 11, 2009 @ 5:16 am
I agree with the previous comments. But what if you are just using “martian” as a general term for alien?
Comment by Margaret Pflueger — March 8, 2011 @ 8:01 pm
Margaret,
what if you are just using “martian” as a general term for alien?
You shouldn’t. If you mean Martian, say that; if you mean “alien”, say that.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — March 8, 2011 @ 9:47 pm
Paul,
But what if the lines are so simply drawn and they are most likely a Martian but might be an alien from a different planet?
Comment by Margaret Pflueger — April 10, 2011 @ 10:12 pm
Margaret,
By all means feel free to use words as you want to. We only follow rules to make our meaning clear; no rule is so rigid that it cannot be “stretched” a bit for literary purposes.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — April 11, 2011 @ 3:58 am
[...] Here‘s an interesting article that convinced me to write “the Moon” instead of “the moon.” [...]
Pingback by Moon Dance (a 500-word story) | Sonia G Medeiros — August 2, 2011 @ 11:12 am
I agree with you on Sun and Moon. It’s like God, which would never be right as just god–regardless of one’s belief, it’s his name! (I don’t go for His.) Sun could be a little ambiguous, especially as sun is often shorthand for sunlight (“he spent too much time in the sun”).
But I question your title “Arrant Pedantry”–a pedant is nitpicky but not necessariy wrong, and you think this is an *important* point. Arrant means “utter”; if it were “errant” I think it would make your point. Concededly in bringing this up, I am being pedantic.
There is an added burden to get things right when the topic is getting it right.
Thanks for weighing in. I just submitted an SF story with Moon capitalize and am stressing out over anything I might have gotten wrong!
Comment by Andrew — February 8, 2012 @ 12:05 pm
But I question your title “Arrant Pedantry”
The title is an allusion to the Churchill story told in the post.
Comment by Paul D. Spudis — February 8, 2012 @ 1:20 pm
A big debate about capitalizing the word ‘sun’ in a text. The text is about the Sun that the planets turn around. Some teachers disagree to capitalize while they capitalize our Sun! What do you think?
Comment by Jawad — March 7, 2012 @ 3:13 am