4.17 Time references and historical periods and events

Capitalize the names of months and days, of holidays and holy days, of historical and geological periods and events, and of parliamentary sessions:

• Wednesday
• October
• Thanksgiving Day
• Passover
• Christmas
• April Fools’ Day
• The First Session of
• the Ice Age
• the Second World War
• World War II
• the Middle Ages
• the Gulf War
• the Pleistocene Epoch
• the Thirty-second Parliament

Do not capitalize the names of the seasons, centuries or decades unless they are personified or are part of special names:

• spring
• winter
• the twentieth century
• the fifties

but

• the Roaring Twenties (name of an era)
• the Winter Palace

Capitalize the names of events recorded in sacred writings and of historical events with a strong religious dimension:

• the Flood
• the Exodus
• the Immaculate Conception
• the Crucifixion
• the Crusades
• the Reformation
• the Great Schism
• the Hegira
• the Diet of Worms
• the Second Vatican Council

Terms that refer to events and periods are often capitalized when they refer to specific events or periods and lower-cased when used in a general sense:

• the Ice Age
• the First World War
• the Quiet Revolution
• the Crusades
• Stone Age hunting implements

• the most recent ice age
• the two world wars
• She started a revolution.
• a crusade against poverty
• He uses stone-age management techniques.

For the use of capitals with time zones, see 1.22 Time zones.

4.18 Cultural periods, movements and styles

Capitalize nouns and adjectives designating literary, philosophical, musical, religious and artistic periods, movements and styles when they are derived from proper nouns:

• Aristotelian logic
• Cartesian dualism
• the Bauhaus
• Gregorian chant
• Romanesque architecture
• Arianism
• Methodism
• Hasidism

Otherwise, such terms are lower-cased except when it is necessary to distinguish a style or movement from the same word used in its general sense:

• cubism
• existentialism
• humanism
• rococo
• the New Criticism
• the Group of Seven
• the Enlightenment
• Scholasticism

4.19 Terms related to religion

The same principles apply to religious terms as to general vocabulary. Writers should resist the temptation to overcapitalize.

(a) Capitalize most adjectives and verbs derived from the names of organized religions:

• Anglican
• Roman Catholic
• Shiite
• Greek Orthodox
• Christianize
• Free Methodist

but

• baptize
• baptism
• christen

(b) Capitalize the names and titles of holy and revered persons:

• The Blessed Virgin
• Our Lady of Sorrows
• Mother Superior
• Saint Jerome
• Maimonides
• Buddha

(c) Capitalize unique theological concepts:

• the Fall
• the Flood
• Original Sin
• the Second Coming
• the Nativity
• the Chosen People
• the Holy Grail
• the Holy of Holies

(d) Do not capitalize derived terms that are not used in a religious sense:

• She is very catholic in her literary tastes.
• His ideas are quite orthodox.

(e) Capitalize the titles of religious writings and documents, special prayers and devotional canticles, creeds and confessions:

• the Bible
• the Torah
• the Koran
• the Vulgate
• Deuteronomy
• the Apocrypha
• the Ten Commandments
• the Talmud

4.20 Deities

(a) Capitalize names, synonyms and personifications of deities and other supernatural beings:

• God
• the Creator
• the Almighty
• Mother Nature
• Jehovah
• Siva
• Minerva
• Moloch
• Allah
• Manitou

(b) Do not capitalize such words used as common nouns:

• The child was an angel.
• The adoring public regarded the film star as a god.

(c) Derivatives of these terms are normally lower-cased, as are similar terms used metaphorically:

• christen
• messianic
• a saviour

(d) Capitalize personal pronouns that refer to deities when they are used as proper nouns, but do not capitalize relative pronouns:

• Trust in Him whose strength will uphold you.

(e) Do not capitalize the words god and goddess when they refer to pagan deities, but capitalize the names of the deities themselves (Baal, Woden, Zeus).

(f) Do not capitalize words such as heaven, paradise, purgatory, nirvana, happy hunting ground, devil and angel when used in a non-religious sense:

• After his wife died he went through purgatory.
• War is hell.

but

• God is in Heaven.
• Many Buddhists seek to attain Nirvana.

5.18 Governmental, military and historical designations

(a) Write out numbers of dynasties, governing bodies, and sessions of Parliament or Congress as ordinals:

• First International
• Third Reich
• Fifth Republic
• Twenty-fourth Dynasty
• Thirty-second Parliament
• Ninety-seventh Congress

(b) Write out ordinal numbers below 100 designating political and administrative divisions:

• Fifth Ward
• Tenth Circuit Court
• Fifteenth Precinct
• Twenty-second District

(c) Designations of large military units, especially in a foreign or historical context, may be written out in ordinals; otherwise use cardinal numerals:

• Sixth Fleet
  5 Combat
          Engineer Regiment
• First Canadian Army
  422 Tactical
          Helicopter quadron

(d) Write out numbers in historical, biblical or formal references:

• the Third World
• the Ten Commandments
• the Twelve Apostles
• the Thirteen Colonies

5.19 Names of organizations

Ordinals modifying the names of churches and religious bodies are usually written out:

• First Baptist Church
• Seventh-Day Adventists
• First Church of Christ Scientist

Use Arabic figures in referring to union locals, fraternal lodges and similar organizations:

• Teamsters Union Local 91
• Loyal Order of Moose 1765
• Royal Canadian Legion, Stittsville Branch 618

© Travaux publics et Services gouvernementaux Canada, 2013
TERMIUM Plus^®, la banque de données terminologiques et linguistiques du gouvernement du Canada
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