Can Some Of You DU Grammar Nazi's Help Me Out

[THUNDER HANDS]

I'm typing up a document and it involves dog breeds. I'm need to know if you capitalize the names of dog breeds like pit bulls or rottweilers.

Would anyone know?

Thanks for the help.

:hi:

[DS1]

1. First off, it's Nazis

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. well

it's a good thing my document does't involve them, now isn't it?

:D

[SouthoftheBorderPaul]

4. You really should have used

quotes around "Nazis." :P

[meegbear]

3. It's Nazis not Nazi's ...

's signifys the possessive, not the plural. That said:

animals Per AP, do not apply a personal pronoun to an animal unless its sex has been established or the animal has a name: The dog was scared and it barked. Rover was scared and he barked. The cat, which was scared, ran to its basket. Susie the cat, who was scared, ran to her basket. The bull tosses his horns. Capitalize breed names according to Webster's; for breeds not listed, capitalize words derived from proper nouns and use lowercase elsewhere: Thoroughbred, basset hound, Boston terrier. See also Chicago 7.105-7.106 and AP Stylebook's that, which, who, whom (pronouns) entry.

http://www.newpaltz.edu/styleguide/editorial/a.html

[unpossibles]

5. apostrophe abuse....

http://apostrophe-abuse.blogspot.com/


I'm not sure about the dog breed question, but I found this online:
http://www.funtrivia.com/news.cfm?section=1118&fromm=10

Make sure you are capitalizing the names of the animals correctly. According to the Merriam-Webster Concise Handbook for Writers, the following is the correct way: "The common names of animals and plants are not capitalized unless they contain a proper noun as a separate element, in which case the proper noun is capitalized, but any element of the name following the proper noun is lowercased. Elements of the name preceding the proper noun are usually but not always capitalized....In references to specific breeds, as distinguished from the animals that belong to the breed, all elements of the name are capitalized."

What that means is if your quiz is about lions, do not capitalize the word Lions. If the quiz is specific to a certain breed of dog, like a Rough Collie, then the breed name has to be capitalized (i.e., "The Rough Collie breed standard calls for a profuse coat"); however, if you are stating "I own two rough collies" then the breed name does not have to be capitalized. If the quiz is about blue whales, do not capitalize the name. If the quiz is about an animal specific to a region, then the region's name is capitalized, as in the South African crowned crane.

[Richardo]

7. Apostrophe abuse... That's 60 days in the cooler!

[displacedtexan]

6. MLA style guide says...

Some common names, such as “Siberian tiger”, “Welsh corgi”, “Old-
English sheep dog”, “French poodle”, “Irish wolfhound” and
“Queensland blue”, that is, names that retain an existing, well-known
locality name, often retain their capitals, while most place-name breed
names have lost theirs. These include “afghan”, “arab”, “chihuahua”,
“clydesdale”, “orpington”, “tamworth”, “berkshire”, “merino”, “jersey”,
“friesian”, “hereford”, “siamese”, “pekinese”, “alsation”, “rottweiler”
and “weimeraner”. The differentiation is not clear, but favour the lower-
case initial — “german shepherd” is now accepted. More...

Hope this helps.

[THUNDER HANDS]

8. thanks!

that was pretty helpful.

Sorry if I offended any grammar nazis with the use of the '

although it scares me a little to think an apostrophe offends you guys more than being called nazis.

;)

[LynneSin]

9. So you're saying that Grammar Nazis will mass-kill all those who have poor grammar

I hate when people use 'Nazi' to describe a group of people that are not harboring the desire to mass-exterminate 6,000,000 Jews and a few million other 'undesirables'