A cream puff, soon to be devoured. Hello, dearies! It’s been a week for ducks here, with rain a near-constant companion for the last several days. Lacking suitable damp-weather gear, I've taken the downpour as a sign to stay in and perfect my cream puff recipe. In between nibbles, I’m delighting in turning the glossy pages of various baking tomes. The recipes are nearly as inviting as the photographs, and the photographs themselves caught my attention for another reason entirely. Captions. How often do we really pay attention to captions beyond their informational content? Figure 1. A stick-thin model pretends to enjoy a bite of artisan bread, which she will promptly spit out once the camera is off. While you as an author are sensibly focused on providing the best possible narrative, your editor will be on the lookout for appropriate punctuation and capitalization throughout the book; this includes captions. The CMOS is generous in its treatment of captions, t...

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng Hello, dearies! After a touch of R&R, I’m back for a bit of Q&A. It seems that a dear friend is at a loss; she’s come up against a crop of royal characters and is anxious to ensure that there’s no mix-up between Queens and queens. Off we go to the CMOS, trailing our cloth of gold behind us. When dealing with titles and offices, the general rule is that “civil, military, religious, and professional titles are capitalized when they immediately precede a personal name and are thus part of the name.” There are, naturally, exceptions to this; after all, people have been known to wear white after Labor Day. It stands to reason that the world of writing has few hard-and-fast rules. For the time being, we’ll stick with the use of royal titles. If you’re using the word alone, such as the queen of Denmark or the sharif of Mecca, you may omit the capital. But , when used as a title, these same words “form an integral and … permanent part of a...

I went to see my Doctor today. Did you join the Military ? I used to date him in High School . I need to talk to my Mother . She was a Nurse at the Hospital where I gave birth. See anything wrong with the above bold words? They are capitalized when they don’t have to be. I see this A LOT in manuscripts I edit. Why should these words be lowercased? Because they are not specific, because they are not naming a specific person, place, or thing. Doctor is generic, common; however, Doctor Bacon is not. The Military is generic, common; however, the U.S. Army is not. High School is generic, common; however, Catonsville High School is not. Mother is generic, common, when you are merely referring to her (on an aunt, uncle, grandfather, grandmother, etc.) especially in a possessive way - like my mother or his grandfather ; however, if you are calling your mother, naming your mother, Mother, then it’s not generic; it’s a name. For example: When Mother calls me, I pic...