Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A Capitalizing generic names

In old fairy tales, the protagonists were sometimes referred to this way: the king, the princess, the miller's son. But there was only one of each, so it was okay to leave them lowercase. If ther...

posted 9y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:30Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/18091
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:25:49Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/18091
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T04:25:49Z (about 5 years ago)
In old fairy tales, the protagonists were sometimes referred to this way: the king, the princess, the miller's son. But there was only one of each, so it was okay to leave them lowercase.

If there might be the slightest confusion about _which_ grocer, officer, etc. is being discussed, you should capitalize them. If there is only ever one grocer in the story, you're probably okay to leave it lowercase.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-07-08T20:48:05Z (over 9 years ago)
Original score: 0