Re: Career questions: databases

>>>>Keith was gently pointing out that the word "English" is a proper noun.
>>>>Proper nouns should always be capitalized, even if your name is e.e.
>>>>cummings. ;-)
>>
>>>Since english is neither a person nor a place nor an event, and since one
>>>can limit it with modifiers like any and some as in "She speaks some
>>>english, and he doesn't speak any english", I respectfully disagree.
>>
>> A proper noun is a noun which names a particular person, place, or thing.
>> The English language is a particular language.
>
> Interestingly, in "the english language", english is an adjective and not
> a noun at all.

You snipped the relevant part of my previous message: "Derivatives of proper nouns are capitalized when used in their primary sense, such as English saddle, but not when used for a specialized meaning, such as french fries or chinaware." "English language" is a derivative of the noun English, which is a proper noun.

Check your dictionary again. Mine shows the following:

     English _adj._ of, relating to, or characteristic of England, the English people, or the English language.

Note that in no case is English typed in lower case when modifying the noun that follows it in this dictionary entry. I'm sure your dictionary shows something very similar, if it's not verbatim.

> English is a proper noun when it names the people of England in contrast
> to the Welsh and the Scottish, but I did not use it as the proper name of
> the people of England.

Check your standard English dictionary. There are no entries for the word English (even when used to modify a noun) where the word English is in lower case. As noted above, "English" when used as a noun should always capitalized, because it is a proper noun, and its derivatives should also be capitalized when used in a primary sense. "English language" is used in the primary sense, but the word "language" doesn't have to be included for the reader to understand that "English," in the context that we've been discussing, means the "English language."

> Interestingly, in "the english language", english is an adjective and not
> a noun at all.

For future reference, commas and periods should always be placed inside the quotation marks, with the exception of when the sentence is a question that contains a quote. The question mark is placed outside of the quotation marks and the punctuation that would have been placed within the quotation marks is skipped.

http://ur.rutgers.edu/styleguide/punctuation.shtml

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp

HTH.
Gunny

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