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Capitalisations regarding race/species

RK-Summers

Scribe
Seelie/Unseelie or seelie/unseelie?

They're both faery, or faekind. Which do you think would be better? Two races of the same species? Or different species of the same, er, genus?

A friend of mine pointed it out this way: Is it a case of cats and dogs or is it a case of Englishmen and Scotsmen?

Opinions?
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
Seelie and Unseelie aren't races, they're Courts or kingdoms. The Seelie are the Summer Court, and are typically more benign toward humans; the Unseelie or Winter Court are typically much less so. I always capitalize them, as well as the different kiths (Daoine Sidhe, Leannan Sidhe, Kelpie, Selkie, Redcap, Merrow, etc. etc.). Each Court contains dozens of different kinds of Fae, not just one.
 
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RK-Summers

Scribe
In the original mythology, yes, they are courts of Faery. I've tweaked the legends however and in my novel they are classed as races of faery. I've also used the sidhe and selchie as different races, so as to not cause confusion.
 
Hi,

Just follow the rules of capitalisation as they relate to proper names. I don't know your races,but the guts of it is simple, is Seelie a proper name? Everything follows from that.

For example take negro and African. African is capitalised because it comes from Africa which is a proper name, while negro is no more a proper name than black or white. So everything that comes from it is not a proper name.

To give a better example, I'm writing a sci fi at the moment about, - well ignore that. The important thing is that it has two races, humans and Leiniens. Note that humans is lower case even though it's a race just like Leiniens. The reason is simply that humans is not a proper name, whereas Leiniens come from Leinia, and Leinia is a world. But instead of humans I could have used Earthlings, and suddenly we're capitalised again because it comes from Earth (the world not dirt!). I recall seeing as a boy that in a few sci fi mags Earthling was never capitalised, and that always made me wonder if they were named not for the world they came from but for the dirt they stood on!

Hope that helps, Greg.

Hope that helps.
 

SeverinR

Vala
Races would be Caucasion, or Hispanic, not nationalities like American or African.
You would capitalize race or heritage;
"Nationalities/Race: Capitalize the proper names of nationalities, races, tribes, etc.: French, Caucasian, Mataponi, Zulu. However, lowercase black, white."
Writer's Web: Capitalization

You don't capitalize species though. You would not capitalize human, elf, dwarf, etc. But would captalize Drow, because its a race of elves.
 
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