Welcome to the first edition of our Olympic-themed newsletter series! This week is all about capitalization. Let’s dive in.
The 2024 Olympic Games begin in two weeks, and if you already found English language rules about capitalization confusing, get ready to be even more confused. If you’re a longtime reader of this newsletter, you might have picked up on the fact that our general advice about capitalization can be pretty much summed up as: When in doubt, don’t capitalize. That goes for things such as job titles (they should only be capitalized when they come directly before a name) and nouns that aren’t referring to a specific person, place or thing (see: Earth vs. earth and Pride vs. pride).
As we said a few weeks ago in our Pride/pride newsletter, specificity is key when you’re deciding whether to capitalize a word. So that’s why you’ll see Games capitalized even when it’s used without “Olympics” in front of it: It’s still a specific reference to a proper noun. That goes for Summer Games and Winter Games too. They all get the capital treatment, even without the keyword “Olympics.”
This concept extends beyond the Olympics. For example, you can use Series when you’re referring to the World Series. You’ll also see legislative bodies capitalized even without their full proper names, as long as it’s clear which specific legislature is being referenced: The Legislature approved the bill.
All right, so now that you’ve got that, prepare to be confused. Two weeks from today, you might see the Olympic torch at the opening ceremony. That’s right, you should not capitalize “torch” or “opening ceremony.” Although the International Olympic Committee, the organization responsible for planning the Olympics, does capitalize the ceremony name, that’s not the most widely adopted published usage. And it’s not standard for the IOC to capitalize “torch.”
Our Olympic series continues next week. What questions do you have? Hit reply and let us know.
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