When on earth do I capitalize Earth?


We've written before abut how tricky capitalization can be, especially when a word or phrase is capitalized in some contexts and not in others. Such is the case with Earth, which is the proper name of our planet and a feature of many common phrases. Ahead of Earth Day tomorrow, here's what you need to know about capitalizing the place we all call home.

So just like you would capitalize Jupiter, you should capitalize Earth, but no need to capitalize it in common sayings. It's a little easier to remember the rules for sun and moon: They're never capitalized.

And if you are issuing reminders tomorrow about the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle), remember the apostrophe.

Happy Earth Day!

❤ Team Stylebot


💌 A tip a week

If someone forwarded you this email, subscribe here to get one writing tip a week in your inbox.

💬 Need more tips?

Want to get writing tips like these on demand? Try Stylebot for free.

📝 About Stylebot

Stylebot helps media professionals save time without sacrificing quality by answering editing questions on Slack and Microsoft Teams. We're on a mission to make editing faster, easier and more fun ✨ Learn more about Stylebot or follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Stylebot

Hone your writing skills and never use "hone in" again. Get writing tips, have fun with words and learn something new in a one-minute read each week by signing up for Stylebot’s newsletter.

Read more from Stylebot

We don't have a handy "principal is your pal"-style trick this week to help you remember the difference between the homophones tenant and tenet, but it looks like most of you don't need the help. Nearly 80% of last week's quiz participants got it right. It's a fun little parallel that both "principle" and "tenet" mean "belief," while their homophones can both refer to people. ("Tenant," of course, is an occupant or dweller.) While "tenant" and "tenet" have different meanings now, each word's...

Maybe it's all the back-to-school activity, or maybe you learned the "principal is your pal" trick back in elementary school, but either way, you didn't seem to need much help with last week's quiz. The vast majority of you knew that the principal would announce a new cellphone policy on the first day of school: Would it have been as easy to fill in this blank, though? Their _____ concern is getting all the children there safely. While principle is only a noun, principal is a noun and an...

Most of you didn't fall for it in last week's quiz, but you might say "infamous" is infamous for being misused. Or it might just be famous. Either way, we were impressed with last week's quiz results, with more than 63% of you answering correctly: So if the words famous and infamous aren't interchangeable, what's the difference? "Famous" simply means widely known, while "infamous" means being known for something bad (aka, famous with a bad rap). However, a lot of people seem to use "infamous"...