Hi, I've made my team middle-earth-chess-club and would like to edit the name from "Middle Earth chess club" to "Middle-earth Chess Club" (more correct spelling and capitalisation). Could you please help?
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FWIW, "Middle-earth Chess Club" is still incorrectly capitalized. Both parts of the word get capitalized in hyphenated proper nouns.
I guess they're referring to Tolkien's Middle-earth, which is spelt that way.
Eh, earth is a bit of an oddball word in this regard. We capitalize it when we say, for example, “The planet Earth,” but we don’t when we say, “What on earth?!” This is because, whereas the former usage employs the proper name of our planet, the latter is essentially a synonym of dirt / soil / ground / terrain.
A similar case is “modern English” vs. “the Modern era” — the former just means recent, whereas the latter specifies an historical period. Another example would be west vs. West — e.g., “head west” vs. “the West.” (Indeed, a good indicator of whether the word in question should be capitalized is if it’s preceded by “the.” When capitalized, it almost always follows “the.” )
That said, I concur with clousems re. proper names. A lot of things that wouldn’t otherwise be capitalized, should be if they’re part of a name — be it a team name, the title of a book, or what have you. But when it comes to Tolkien, I suppose this is even more complicated than usual. You may find this discussion of interest: www.quora.com/What-is-the-proper-canonical-spelling-of-Middle-earth-in-Tolkiens-works
It would seem that, while not necessarily proper, the OP’s spelling is at least canonical.
A similar case is “modern English” vs. “the Modern era” — the former just means recent, whereas the latter specifies an historical period. Another example would be west vs. West — e.g., “head west” vs. “the West.” (Indeed, a good indicator of whether the word in question should be capitalized is if it’s preceded by “the.” When capitalized, it almost always follows “the.” )
That said, I concur with clousems re. proper names. A lot of things that wouldn’t otherwise be capitalized, should be if they’re part of a name — be it a team name, the title of a book, or what have you. But when it comes to Tolkien, I suppose this is even more complicated than usual. You may find this discussion of interest: www.quora.com/What-is-the-proper-canonical-spelling-of-Middle-earth-in-Tolkiens-works
It would seem that, while not necessarily proper, the OP’s spelling is at least canonical.
PS:
I think Tolkien was trying to render two words as one, without compounding them (hence the hyphen).* If the word were Middlearth (sans one “e”), there’d be no need to “CamelCap” it.
* We typically hyphenate three-word phrases, but not instances of just two words. So for example:
- The jeans were low waisted.
- They were low-waisted jeans.
It’s essentially the same rule as in compound phrases — e.g., “the back yard” vs. “backyard barbecue.” You join back & yard only if there’s another word after them. Ditto “backseat driver” vs. “the back seat.”
I suspect the confusion results from this. Tolkien wasn’t trying to say Middle Earth (as in a specific kind of Earth), but rather to join the two words into one, without compounding them, since that would require losing an “e.” (Middleearth looks like it should be pronounced differently.) So he chose to write it Middle-earth, even though this *appears* to break multiple rules.
I think Tolkien was trying to render two words as one, without compounding them (hence the hyphen).* If the word were Middlearth (sans one “e”), there’d be no need to “CamelCap” it.
* We typically hyphenate three-word phrases, but not instances of just two words. So for example:
- The jeans were low waisted.
- They were low-waisted jeans.
It’s essentially the same rule as in compound phrases — e.g., “the back yard” vs. “backyard barbecue.” You join back & yard only if there’s another word after them. Ditto “backseat driver” vs. “the back seat.”
I suspect the confusion results from this. Tolkien wasn’t trying to say Middle Earth (as in a specific kind of Earth), but rather to join the two words into one, without compounding them, since that would require losing an “e.” (Middleearth looks like it should be pronounced differently.) So he chose to write it Middle-earth, even though this *appears* to break multiple rules.
i creat team but i want add emoji who know how add?
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