Hi all,
Crime/intelligence story. The story involves regular mention of the code name for a project or terrorist cell. Let’s call it “Veracity”. Should it start with a capital when it is in the middle of a sentence ? It looks wrong to me but I can’t decide.
Yes, absolutely capitalize. It’s a proper noun, and not capitalizing — especially if the code name is a common word — could be confusing:
It seemed that every place Bob had been over the last three days — the pub, the brothel; really, just those two places, as Bob’s marriage of late had been, well, anyway — had begun showing disturbing signs that veracity was taking hold. Veracity, the bad guy thing, not the thing that means conformity to facts.
Thanks Sean. The name does look rather lonely and without significance when I leave it in small letters. But when I capitalise it, it seems to look almost too loud … But I take you point, of course.
Be loud!
Yes, absolutely capitalize your proper nouns. The corporation known as ‘Apple’ is always capitalized even though the common apple (fruit) is not. Also, if it’s an acronym, the name should be in all-caps* SHIELD, UNCLE, RADAR. Interspersing periods is a matter of style choice.
*edit: well, not always: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6064/when-does-an-acronym-lose-its-capitalization-e-g-radar-radar
Message received … loud and clear 