Capitalization of breeds.
Mark Odegard
What are the capitalization rules for breed names? This question
is directed mostly at dog breeds, but also cats, horses, cattle,
hybrid goldfish, etc. I've come to the conclusion there is no
set rule, and perhaps, there is no formal rule at all, it being
left to dictionaries to pick and chose (and then,
inconsistently).
Why cocker spaniel but Weimaraner? Why dachshund, rottweiler and
whippet, but Airedale terrier and Samoyed? (All AHD3)
With cattle, AHD3 caps Holstein, but labels "Often Jersey" the
jersey; longhorn is given uncommented as lower case.
The rottweiler is named after Rottweil, a German city. The
Weimaraner is also named after a German city, but is uppercased.
Why?
If a rule is to be sought, it seems that if the name comes from
a proper noun, it's capped, but only sometimes, and that
sometimes varies from dictionary to dictionary. I think one is
genuinely on your own!
My own taste in capitalization is to cap as infrequently as
possible, which is the same thing as saying I think "proper
noun" should be narrowly interpreted. In theory, I'd lower case
*all* breed names with just a few exceptions. If it's one word,
it's always lowercased, even if the word is a proper noun in
other contexts: airedale, dalmatian, newfoundland, weimaraner.
If a modifier is proper, it is capitalized, but the basic noun
is not: Jack Russell terrier, Tibetan spaniel, Norwegian
elkhound. If you say "Labrador retriever", it's capped, but if
you leave it at "labrador", it's not.
But then you encounter dogs like great danes, great pyrenees,
old english sheepdogs and saint bernards, and your convictions
are challenged; after some thought they are sustained. I extend
the rule to cats: persians, siamese, burmese, and manx, as well
as horses, anything that man selectively breeds and names.
Now. Truly would chime in here and say, if you're writing
something for the Am Kennel Club, you'd follow their house
rules, which seems to capitalize *all* words of *all*
breed-names. During the midterm exam in Dr. Thistlebottom's comp
and rhetoric class, though, I'd worry a little -- and it's
exactly here where the inconsistency is most bothersome. Where
is a *rule* written? When the dictionaries don't agree
completely, what are you to do?
--
Mark Odegard ode...@ptel.net
[e-mailed copies of responses to my postings are welcomed]
The great orthographical contest has long subsisted between
etymology and pronunciation. It has been demanded, on one hand,
that men should write as they speak; but, as it has been shown
that this conformity never was attained in any language, and
that it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in
speaking than in writing, it may be asked, with equal propriety,
why men do not rather speak as they write.
-- Samuel Johnson, "The Plan of an English Dictionary" (1747).
Truly Donovan
Mark Odegard wrote:
>
>
> Now. Truly would chime in here and say, if you're writing
> something for the Am Kennel Club, you'd follow their house
> rules, which seems to capitalize *all* words of *all*
> breed-names. During the midterm exam in Dr. Thistlebottom's comp
> and rhetoric class, though, I'd worry a little -- and it's
> exactly here where the inconsistency is most bothersome. Where
> is a *rule* written? When the dictionaries don't agree
> completely, what are you to do?
I'll let you know as soon as the AKC calls me up and asks me to write
something for them.
I have noticed this inconsistency myself, and, as one who invariably
prefers lower-casing to initial caps whenever an opportunity to exercise
a preference arises, I have some difficulty with my West Highland White
Terrier in this regard. (She can get really snooty about it, too.) This
is one that is usually capped -- presumably because of the "Highland"
reference, but who knows -- but then what do you do with "Westie," which
generally seems to be capped, as well?
Of course, when I was the proud owner (if that can be said to be the
proper description of *that* relationship) of the world's only San Jose
Red Terrier, it had to be capped. The dog in question, clearly a mutt
-- and an exceedingly homely one, at that -- to anyone with any
knowledge of the subject, got dubbed that when I got tired of answering
people who asked "What breed is that?" as they nervously inched their
purebred away from him. Zipper was literally a red mostly-terrier pup
found starving in a park in San Jose by a rescuer who thought it was
high time I had a dog. Everyone smiled and nodded when I advised them of
his breed, just as if it had been on the tip of their tongue. To this
day I don't know how many of them realized it was a leg pull.
Next time around, I'm thinking of getting an Italian Spinone and a
Leonsberger and walking them together, so when people ask me what breed
they are they still won't understand the answer.
--
Truly Donovan
"Industrial-strength SGML," Prentice Hall 1996
ISBN 0-13-216243-1
http://www.prenhall.com
Bob Cunningham
ode...@ptel.net (Mark Odegard) said:
>What are the capitalization rules for breed names? This question
>is directed mostly at dog breeds, but also cats, horses, cattle,
>hybrid goldfish, etc. I've come to the conclusion there is no
>set rule, and perhaps, there is no formal rule at all, it being
>left to dictionaries to pick and chose (and then,
>inconsistently).
Your conclusion seems to be borne out by the following comment in
The University of Chicago Press's _A Manual of Style_, 12th Edition
(1969) (Section 7.104):
Common names of plants and animals are capitalized in
a bewildering variety of ways, even in lists and
catalogs having professional status. It is often
appropriate to follow the style of an "official" list,
and if the author wishes to do so, he should let his
editor know what list he is following.
It seems to me it might be even better to ask the editor in advance
whether the publishing concern has a preferred list. Maybe a more
recent version of the Chicago Style Manual makes that recommendation.
Allan Rostron
A pragmatic view: as editor of Animal Breeding Abstracts, the simple rule
I use for the names of breeds of livestock, poultry, cats, dogs, mink etc
is to capitalise the lot. I use this rule for reasons of history, common
usage and convenience. Universal capitalisation was the rule used right
from the beginning of the journal in the early 1930s and in the book
published by the journal's publisher (CAB International of Wallingford,
Oxfordshire, UK (yes, it's a little plug) - World Dictionary of Livestock
Breeds, Types and Varieties by Ian L. Mason. The first edition of this
book appeared in 1951, and the author apparently felt no need to explain
his capitalisation policy. The book was derived from a list used by the
compilers of Animal Breeding Abstracts as a means of standardising breed
nomenclature in abstracts of the world literature on breeding, in which
the same breed could go by many different names. A very large proportion
of the names are derived from place names and naturally took a capital -
Gloucester, Holstein and Ayrshire cattle, Suffolk and Texel sheep etc.
Perhaps the descriptive names (and descriptive words within basically
geographically derived names) got their capitals by inertia - Large White
pigs, White Park cattle, Leicester Longwool sheep, Oxford Sandy and Black
pigs etc.; and all those decades ago there was a much stronger tendency to
capitalise what were seen as important words than there is today. In the
agricultural literature it's very rare to see a breed name without a
capital - I occasionally see "white leghorn" hens mentioned. Whatever the
merits or otherwise of capitalisation in the general literature, it's
certainly convenient in technical material. I'd never get all my
contributors to follow any of the rules that have been mentioned in this
thread so far (or to consistently follow a printed list). Consistent
capitalisation is needed for electronic retrieval purposes if
case-sensitive searching is done. There are a few non-capitalised
"generic" terms we use that do not represent specific breeds, but refer to
groups of breeds, such as "black-and-white cattle", which includes
Friesians, Holsteins and numerous other types. One might also refer to
"longhorn" cattle as represented by the Texas Longhorn and various other
(capitalised!) breeds. Hybrids present a different problem, partly because
of the variation in the usage of the term "hybrid". A cross between two
species such as the mule (horse x ass) takes a lower-case initial. But the
term "hybrid" is also used of crosses between breeds of the same species
or even between inbred lines of the same breed. Such are usually given
capital initials, e.g. Welsh Halfbred sheep and HP-21 pigs (I made that
one up but commercial hybrids are often given such monicas).
When you get to fish breeding the situation is more hazy; there are no
breeds comparable to those of livestock, and there is much hybridisation
(natural and artificia) and genetic hanky-panky of various kinds, and the
nomenclature is a bit of a minefield.
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Allan Rostron
al...@tatton.demon.co.uk
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