Hi Tara,

Yep, the same rules apply. You should say 'Egypt's new pope.' You would also refer to Pope Benedict XVI as 'the pope' when you weren't including his name directly after. I think some people choose to say 'the Pope' as an exception, similar to the exception above with 'the President,' for emphasis. :)

Good question, Tara! We don't need to capitalize 'civil rights movement.' The Chicago Manual of Style, section 8.74, had this to say: 'Names of many major historical events and programs are conventionally capitalized. Others, more recent or known by their generic descriptions, are usually lowercased. If in doubt, do not capitalize.' For example, 'the War on Poverty' and 'Prohibition' are capitalized, but 'the baby boom' and 'the civil rights movement' are not.

I'm always able to look up specific instances like this, so if you or anyone else have questions, let me know!

Tanya

Good question, Tara! The Chicago Manual of Style, section 6.47, recommends always capitalizing the abbreviation with no comma.

So it would be 'George H. W. Bush Sr.' Junior would be 'Jr.' If you wanted to spell them out, you should capitalize them ('Senior' and 'Junior'), but the spelled-out versions are often used as designations for other things, such as your year in university in the US.

By the way, the Chicago Manual of Style, section 10.12, also recommends putting a space between initials, so H. W., not H.W. I have seen both ways used often, though.

Hope that helps,
Tanya :)

Neither the Chicago Manual of Style nor my set of dictionaries deal with the capitalization of 'US Embassy'! Going by a google search and the embassy itself, I'd say it should be capitalized. It also follows the rule of lowercasing when dealing with the general case (e.g., I visited the embassy yesterday) and capitalizing for a specific name (e.g., He works for the US Embassy).

Does anyone else have an opinion about this? We'd love to hear from you!

Hi Tara,

Names of diseases are lowercased unless there is a proper name involved (i.e., if a disease was named after a person). So it would be 'scarlet fever' and 'pneumonia', but 'Alzheimer disease' and 'Down syndrome'. (Chicago Manual of Style, 8.143)

Names of historical events are often capitalized, such as the Great Plague/the Plague. You could possibly make a case for scarlet fever being capitalized, but Chicago says 'if in doubt, do not capitalize', so my advice is to leave it lowercased. (Chicago Manual of Style, 8.74)

Hope that helps!
Tanya

Great question, Tara! The answer may surprise you!

Unlike president and queen, which only get capitalized when directly preceding a proper name, First Lady is always capitalized! This is according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. Your examples should be written like this:

First Lady Michelle Obama was a hoot on the Jimmy Fallon show.
The First Lady was a hoot on the Jimmy Fallon show.

Why would this be? My guess is that the terms 'president' and 'queen' obviously refer to only one person, whereas 'lady' is a more generic term. Or it could just be another quirk of the English language---there are plenty! ;)