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From a grade school textbook:

Good morning, children. I'm an astronomer. I study the stars and the planets. They're amazing!

We live on the Earth. The Earth is a planet. It rotates all the time. The Earth takes 24 hours to rotate completely.

There are eight planets in the solar system and they all go round the sun. Some planets go quickly and some planets go slowly. The Earth takes 365 days to go round the sun.

At night you can see the moon and the stars. The moon goes round the Earth. The moon takes 28 days to go round the Earth.

In the day you can see the sun. The sun is a very big star. It's 100 bigger than the Earth! It's the only star you can see in the day.

[ Stella Maidment and Lorena Roberts, Happy Street, New Edition, Class Book 2, Oxford University Press, published 2009, 2013, 2014 ]

This work may contain some astronomical errors, but that is not the theme now. I've highlighted some instances where two bodies appear in the same sentence, including "sun" and "moon", and where only one takes a capital letter (Earth). I'm reading this Q&A (in particular this answer) on the use of definite articles with earth/moon/sun; the Wikipedia article on capitalization has a reference to the Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing, which suggests to:

Capitalize astronomical terms such as the names of galaxies, constellations, stars, planets and their satellites, and asteroids. However, the terms earth, sun, and moon are often not capitalized unless they appear in a sentence that refers to other astronomical bodies.

The sun is an ordinary star.
Venus and Earth differ significantly in the composition of their atmospheres.

[ Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing, section 9.1 ]

Is capitalization preferred with Sun, Moon and Solar system, as in the the star, the satellite, and the body containing them; is it generally accepted to give specific consideration (as does the MHoTaSW) to cases where more than one name appears in the same sentence, and to prefer lowercase when there is only one?

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Gangnus
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  • Hey Gagnus, if you check out the list of on- and off-topic questions in the [help/on-topic], you'll see that EL&U can't really address generic "proof-reading" questions. If you can identify specific areas of concern, we can discuss those for sure. – Dan Bron May 11 '15 at 21:33
  • I have mentioned three sorts of errors about which I would be glad to get yes or no, too. – Gangnus May 11 '15 at 21:36
  • Oh! You're right! My apologies. Itchy trigger finger. – Dan Bron May 11 '15 at 21:37
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    @DanBron Thank you. I have edited according to your comment. – Gangnus May 11 '15 at 21:43
  • I don't see anything wrong with saying, "The Earth takes..." as opposed to "It takes the Earth..." – Jim May 11 '15 at 22:12
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    There's a degree of inconsistency in capitalising the Earth, but not the Moon or the Sun. But lots of people do that these days. Otherwise it seems fine to me. The question is a peeve and/or off topic proofreading. – FumbleFingers May 11 '15 at 22:38
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    "It's 100 bigger than the Earth!" is obviously wrong, but I would guess that's an error in transcription. – Hot Licks May 11 '15 at 23:08
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    None of the things you mention is an error. Some of them might have been better phrased in a different manner, but they are all perfectly grammatical and make sense. Capitalisation of heavenly bodies varies quite a lot, and the OUP style guide specifically says to capitalise as little as possible; hence the lowercase sun, moon, and solar system. (The Wikipedia article on Solar System also notes the varying capitalisation of that term, even by the IAU.) – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 11 '15 at 23:56
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a list of pet peeves disguised as a question. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 11 '15 at 23:57
  • it was inevitable... although I was a little surprised by the lack of uppercase letters. If Earth is rightly capitalized, it follows that the Sun should be too, and the Solar System. Other than that... I don't see any other "errors". – Mari-Lou A May 12 '15 at 00:02
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    Not really a proofreading question though, is it? The OP has clearly identified where his confusion lies, and has also offered what he believes are the correct solutions. – Mari-Lou A May 12 '15 at 00:06
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    Aren't both "moon" and "sun" common nouns? Other solar systems have suns, for example. And obviously other planets have moons. – potatoesandnoodles May 12 '15 at 00:58
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    @potatoesandnoodles Yes, they are common nouns too (as is earth); but they are usually, though not always, capitalised when they refer to the specific entities we know as the Earth (Tellus), the Sun (Sol), and the Moon (the only satellite orbiting the Earth). To avoid ambiguity, most would probably advocate avoiding saying that “other solar systems have suns [and] other planets have moons”, instead saying that other planetary systems have stars and other planets have satellites. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 12 '15 at 02:34
  • @Mari-LouA It seems to me that it is not the Earth that takes time, but some PROCESS it is involved in. Maybe it is not an error in English, but in logic, but it is an error obviously. ... My error was that I gave references BEFORE the check for errors. – Gangnus May 12 '15 at 08:02
  • Do you want the question reopened? If not I'll retract my vote and delete the edit. – Mari-Lou A May 12 '15 at 08:05
  • @Mari-LouA Thank you very much, I would like to see some serious answers in future. If the question will be opened, sometimes more answers could appear. – Gangnus May 12 '15 at 08:14
  • I'll take that as a "yes". :) – Mari-Lou A May 12 '15 at 08:21
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    If this had simply been a question about whether to capitalize the names of celestial bodies, I could imagine its being of some use to future visitors to the site. (I could also imagine that the question has already been asked and answered on this site.) But the OP presents six questions about one small block of text, and no one other than the poster is likely to have anything like the same interest in either that block of text or those questions. Given the extremely limited value of the questions as presented, I will not be voting to reopen. – Sven Yargs May 12 '15 at 09:36
  • @SvenYargs well there is also the use of the article, which causes many headaches for learners, and it's curious, to me at least, why a children's textbook didn't capitalize the words sun, solar system and (to a lesser extent) moon. I think the biggest objection to the post was its tone, it was rather confrontational in the beginning, but now the OP has calmed down a little, and has deleted the exclamatory comment re OUP. I think the question could be improved further but as it stands it has some merit. – Mari-Lou A May 12 '15 at 11:07
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    I cannot vote to reopen this, because these are six entirely unrelated questions in one. And some of them have been asked, and answered, before. Please isolate a single issue that can be answered in a single paragraph. Please also search the site before asking. Thank you. – RegDwigнt May 12 '15 at 13:44
  • @MariLou A: I think the poster could save the overall question in a useful form (assuming that the relevant questions haven't already appeared on EL&U) by taking the following steps: (1) Reword the question header as something like "Use of definite articles and lowercasing with 'sun', 'moon', solar system', 'planets' and 'stars'." (2) Get rid of current questions 2, 5, and 6—which read like cavils anyway—and renumber the remaining questions as 1, 2, and 3. (3) Change "I see errors... please check, and tell me if I'm mistaken..." to something like "How should these terms be treated?" ... – Sven Yargs May 12 '15 at 17:12
  • ...Again, my primary criticism of the question as it stands is that it seems more like a shotgun blast fired at a book that the poster found annoying than like an earnest effort to ascertain what (if any) approach(es) to the identified issues is/are standard in English. The most important thing to fix (from my point of view) is the grave mismatch between what the head asks and what the body of the question asks. The next-most important thing is to narrow the focus of the question to a coherent cluster of subquestions that another site visitor might plausibly be interested in reading about. – Sven Yargs May 12 '15 at 17:16
  • @RegDwigнt May I ask if you think this is closer to the mark? Some comments show there is something to talk about with the International Astronomical Union's take on this vs. Mayfield that OP had found etc. And this also takes into account prior content, as you suggested. Thank you. –  May 13 '15 at 17:44

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This text has a very annoying way of talking down to children by using absurdly short sentences. It also has one blatant astronomical error ("The moon takes 28 days to go round the Earth."). But I do not think it contains any real grammatical errors, just infelicities.

fdb
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    Somehow, the astronomical error about the Moon’s orbit seems far less blatant than the absolutely, erm, astronomical error about the size of the Sun relative to the Earth. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 11 '15 at 23:48
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    @JanusBahsJacquet in terms of diameter it's actually about right (the sun is about 109 times as big as the earth in diamater). I think most kids would think of the relative size in exactly that way. In terms of volume it's about the cube of that (naturally) -- 1.3 million times as big, and in terms of mass about a third of a million times the mass. At worst I'd say it was 'ambiguous' rather than 'wrong' – Glen_b May 12 '15 at 04:54
  • The most blatant astronomic error is the phrase: Sun is a very big star. While the Sun is a yellow DWARF. It is a small star. Other errors are not really important, they belong to the usual imprecision of a popular text. – Gangnus May 12 '15 at 07:49
  • But I have read in the grammar books, that while we are talking on astronomy, Sun and Moon should start from the uppercase. Also, it is not the Earth that takes time, but some PROCESS it is involved in. – Gangnus May 12 '15 at 07:52
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    @Gangnus: Sun/sun and Moon/moon is a matter of personal preference. I would hesitate to say that one or the other is actually "wrong". Likewise: "very big" implies a comparison. The sun is "very big" compared to the earth, but not very big compared to other stars. – fdb May 12 '15 at 12:23
  • @fdb so, we cannot say "the Sun is a very big star". – Gangnus May 12 '15 at 13:23
  • @Gangnus. I was trying to say that "sun" and "Sun" are both correct. – fdb May 12 '15 at 13:24
  • @fdb I see. the last comment answered to your last sentence. As for sun/Sun, could you give a reference to some grammar book? – Gangnus May 12 '15 at 13:27
  • BTW, Wikipedia, with the reference to The Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing, section 9.1, says that non-capitalized sun/earth/moon is the error. – Gangnus May 12 '15 at 13:33
  • @Gangnus http://www.mhhe.com/mayfieldpub/tsw/capitals.htm

    "Capitalize astronomical terms such as the names of galaxies, constellations, stars, planets and their satellites, and asteroids. However, the terms earth, sun, and moon are often not capitalized unless they appear in a sentence that refers to other astronomical bodies."

     – pyobum Sep 20 '16 at 06:07
  • Why is using short sentences a way to talk down to children? I thought that this would be easier for them to comprehend? – Ooker Feb 01 '21 at 07:37