This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles
This article was created or added to during the Victoria Cross Reference Migration. It may contain material that was used with permission from victoriacross.net.
Capitalization
@Ahunt: Per MOS:JOBTITLES and MOS:MILTERMS, ranks are not capitalized unless used as part of the name ("Early in the action Major Mahony was wounded", but "Mahony was a lieutenant colonel"). Also, "the words for types of military unit (army, navy, fleet, company, etc.) do not require capitalization if they do not appear in a proper name. Thus, the American army". The word major by itself is a common noun, not a proper name; look in any decent dictionary. Now that you know, please restore my edits. Christhe spelleryack17:31, 7 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I guess Wikipedia does this differently than Canada does. Here the rank titles themselves are proper nouns and are always capitalized. Are we not using Canadian English for this article? - Ahunt (talk) 18:02, 7 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Ahunt: The difference between proper nouns and common nouns is the same in Canada as in any other English-speaking place. The WP article Proper noun says "A proper noun is a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity, such as London, Jupiter, Sarah, or Microsoft, as distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities (city, planet, person, corporation), or non-unique instances of a specific class". Plumbers, nurses and majors are classes of jobs, while King of Romania refers to a unique entity, at least at one point in time. In any of the English-speaking countries, military ranks are often capitalized for no good reason, but are not consistently in upper case. Military organizations tend to wallow in this kind of self-aggrandizement even more than civilian organizations, who love to overcapitalize things in their brochures and web pages. Wikipedia sets it own style: per MOS:CAPS, "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. In English, capitalization is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, or for the first word of a sentence." I think you will have a hard time finding a Canadian dictionary that shows "lieutenant colonel" as always capitalized; other major dictionaries do not. Canadians do not consistently use upper case for military ranks; see this bio. Christhe spelleryack21:26, 7 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]