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I'm working in an Indigenous Australian context in which particular sacred trees and animals are capitalised. I'm aware that the specific name of the tree, for example, needs to be capitalised but would I capitalise the word 'tree' in the following example?

'The Wattle tree is sacred to us'

Or

'The Wattle Tree is sacred to us'

Thanks

Prem
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Mawspan Potrose
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    I would say that it depends on whether you are referring to the tree as a species, or to a particular tree. A special, individual tree would have its name capitalised, a species (like 'oak tree') wouldn't. – Kate Bunting May 24 '22 at 07:49
  • The capitalisation is because it's an article title, but it might be relevant that Aboriginal Peoples Did Not have Written Languages - so arguably the Indigenous Australians themselves don't get a vote on this one! – FumbleFingers May 24 '22 at 10:41
  • @KateBunting: I'm not sure what context you'd be talking about where "the wattle tree" refers to a specific tree, and therefore might justify being capitalised. Consider, say, The oak tree in this valley is sacred to the local Druids. Who would capitalise that? – FumbleFingers May 24 '22 at 10:45
  • @FumbleFingers - I was thinking of individual, named trees, such as the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest. – Kate Bunting May 24 '22 at 12:02
  • In Terry Gustavson's review (EnidBlytonSociety) of the eponymous work of childrens (ooh, no apostrophe) fiction, he uses 'Magic Faraway Tree' and 'Faraway Tree' without exception throughout his article. This is equivalent to adopting a compound (whether 2- or 3-orthographic words) proper name and conferring the usual respect (it probably also subtly involves anthropomorphism). A snag here is that 'wattle tree' is used by non-initiates in the usual way, like 'pine tree' or 'ash tree'. I'd say (1) ask those who might ... – Edwin Ashworth May 24 '22 at 14:29
  • have a preference in the domain involved (scientists would demand Acacia pravissima for Oven's wattle (which apparently isn't a wattle!) for instance. Does non-capitalisation offend some people? Why not comply, locally? – Edwin Ashworth May 24 '22 at 14:30
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    Closely related: Is there a trend toward not capitalizing the word Bible? // Should I capitalize 'bible' in 'the Christian Bible'? 'the Discordian Bible'? – Edwin Ashworth May 24 '22 at 14:36
  • I am voting to close this as it is giving rise to opinions and I seriously suggest that you ask the Aboriginals. To do otherwise would be a grave mistake. There seems little point in asking someone not of the religion/belief system what form a certain word or phrase - significant to that religion - should take. This is a cultural matter, not a matter of language. There are several "Aboriginal Councils", e.g. https://alc.org.au/ahims/, I assume that any one of them could provide an answer. – Greybeard May 26 '22 at 20:16

3 Answers3

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I interpret the OP's question to be:

Taking it as given that Wattle is capitalised in this context, should tree in the phrase Wattle tree be capitalised as well?

That is, I set aside the question, raised in another answer, about the capitalisation of Wattle, and simply assume that, in this context, it should be capitalised.

The question is similar to the question that was asked before about the capitalisation of, for example, integral in Riemann integral. In all these cases we have a phrase that contains a word that is definitely a proper name, and a word that, in other contexts, functions as a common noun. The question is then whether to treat the latter in such cases as a common noun or a part of a two-word proper name.

There is no general answer to such questions; it is a matter of conventions that differ from one field to another. Consider, for example the geographic names, such as the Atlantic Ocean. In these cases, it is a well established convention to treat the whole two-word phrase as the proper name of the ocean, and to consequently capitalise both words. Somebody could reason that this is simply an ocean, one among several, that is distinguished from the others by the name Atlantic, and that ocean should therefore not be capitalised. There would be nothing wrong with this reasoning considered in the abstract (after all, that's precisely what is done in, say, French), it's just that the universally accepted convention among English speakers is to the contrary. The conventions, however, go the other way with respect to Riemann integral, Euler's number and suchlike. One could argue that Euler's number is the proper name of that number and that consequently both words in that phrase ought to be capitalised; there would be nothing in principle wrong about that argument; it's just that, as a matter of convention, it hasn't been generally embraced.

So, the answer to the OP is: there is no general rule of the language that determines whether to capitalise tree in Wattle tree (again, taking it as given that Wattle is to be capitalised). It is a matter of convention in the relevant field. If it is an established practice among the respectable writers in the field to capitalise it, it would be wise to go along; if not, not.

jsw29
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  • +1 , I "Interpreted" it the same way in my answer, that is, I took that as a Proper Noun and hence, I said that both words should be Capitalized, using the "rules" for Proper Nouns. – Prem May 24 '22 at 18:34
  • ... So POB; the 'how long is the proper noun' question has been dealt with per se. – Edwin Ashworth May 24 '22 at 19:01
  • @EdwinAshworth, what exactly is 'POB' here: (1) that this is a matter of field-specific conventions, or (2) which convention would be better to adopt here? The answer says nothing about the latter (which could indeed be argued to be a matter of opinion); the former is not itself a matter of opinion (it is either true or false; if you believe that it is false, you should say so, and post what you regard as the correct answer). See this meta-question. – jsw29 May 24 '22 at 20:21
  • I see no inherent conflict between this and my own answer. All things being equal, I personally wouldn't capitalise "wattle", so the issue of whether or not to capitalise "tree" simply wouldn't arise. But all things aren't equal if we assume as a given that "Wattle" *will* be capitalised, in which case I personally probably would capitalise "Tree" as well. But that's a stylistic choice which most people apparently don't make in such contexts... – FumbleFingers May 25 '22 at 11:08
  • See this NGram for *sat under the Bodhi tree* - which will almost always be a reference to Buddha sitting there gaining enlightenment, so that's obviously another "sacred" context (where "Tree" usually isn't capitalised, but *I* would do that). – FumbleFingers May 25 '22 at 11:11
  • The ellipsis indicates a follow-on from the previous comment. 'I "Interpreted" it the same way in my answer, that is, I took that as a Proper Noun and hence ...'; Prem states that he made a judgement call. Whether or not to capitalise 'tree' is a matter of local custom, perhaps just linguistic happenstance, perhaps related to religious preference (as with Bible/bible). Wikipedia lists << Baikushev's pine >> and << Brian Boru's Oak >>, << Washington tree >> and << Survivor Tree >> among named individual specimens. – Edwin Ashworth May 25 '22 at 15:12
  • @FumbleFingers, I didn't quite see it in your answer that 'But all things aren't equal if we assume as a given that "Wattle" will be capitalised, in which case I personally probably would capitalise "Tree" as well.' Adding that to the answer would be a significant modification. – jsw29 May 25 '22 at 15:21
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I wouldn't even capitalise wattle, let alone tree. Nor do most other writers...

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Being case-sensitive, the above chart misses sentences starting with The, so for good measure here are those too...

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Of course, this tree is "important" (but not necessarily "sacred") to many "non-indigenous" Australians too, given that apparently The wattle tree is the national emblem of Australia.

I would also point out that almost no-one ever capitalises The cow is sacred to Hindus. That just seems more "natural" to most Anglophones because we're more familiar with cows than wattle-trees.

FumbleFingers
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  • +1 for the carefully limited claim in the first line. Capitalizing one or both words remains an available rhetorical choice, at least in dual-case writing systems. Similar (and fraught) choices determine whether a writer or publication renders racial designations as "black and white" or "Black and white" or "Black and White." – Brian Donovan May 24 '22 at 11:17
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    With all due respect, I don't think that this answer is sufficiently attentive to the fact that OP is 'working in an Indigenous Australian context' in which these trees are regarded as sacred. Capitalising their names fits well the general rules of the language if they function as proper names in this context, even if they are common nouns in other contexts. Pronouncing a judgment on whether they can be regarded as proper names would require a more extensive discussion of the conceptualisation of the trees in the relevant cultural/religious framework. – jsw29 May 24 '22 at 16:08
  • @jsw29: I don't see how "an Indigenous Australian context" is any different to the context of my example cow being sacred to Hindus. Actually, I think capitalising my Cow or OP's Wattle Tree is really just a kind of "poetic flourish" optional stylistic choice - like Blake's capitalised *Tyger, Tyger , burning bright, In the forests of the night.* (Except I personally *like* Tygers, cows, and wattle trees, not the other way around! :) – FumbleFingers May 25 '22 at 03:28
  • @FumbleFingers, you are right that sacredness by itself in not a sufficient reason for capitalising the word. To determine whether wattle functions as a proper name here, one would need to to know more than just that wattle trees are regarded a sacred; one would need to understand the nature of their sacredness. Forming an opinion on whether the Indigenous Australian and Hindu contexts are different in this respect would require a discussion of their respective ways of conceptualising these creatures; I am not arguing the matter either way. – jsw29 May 25 '22 at 15:16
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According to most Style Guides, Proper Nouns will have Capitalizations through out, except maybe for words like "the", "a" or "of".

So both words in your example should be Capitalized :

'The Wattle Tree is sacred to us'

Quick Reference:
https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/common-vs-proper-nouns/

More Examples, taking these as made-up names of movies or novels :

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Capital Letters
Helena of Troy
Queen in a Cage

UPDATE :

[[ I am not sure what to make of this situation; The answer by @FumbleFingers goes against my answer, but still the google ngram used in that answer is in support of my answer ! ]]

Using this query in Google Books Ngram Viewer ....

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+Wattle+tree%2Cthe+wattle+tree%2Cthe+Wattle+Tree&year_start=1920&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=10&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cthe%20Wattle%20tree%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cthe%20wattle%20tree%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cthe%20Wattle%20Tree%3B%2Cc0

.... I get this Statistic:

Green line moving UP !

Even though I am not sure what to make of this, I think : (1) "the Wattle Tree" is currently used, and is increasing in usage ; (2) "the Wattle tree" is not common ; & (3) "the wattle tree" is very common in general, but may not be suitable in the "Sacred Sense" required by OP.

Prem
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  • This might be true if they're talking about a specific instance of wattle trees, but if they're talking about wattle trees in general, it wouldn't be. – nick012000 May 24 '22 at 08:33
  • I just searched Google Books for "tree is sacred to". The first page of 10 results included ... the hawthorn tree* is sacred to many people... the bodhi tree is sacred to Buddhists... The silk-cotton tree is sacred to the Ngombe,,, The ash tree is sacred to the Celts.* But I didn't see *any* instances featuring capitalisation. If it's just a type of tree (as opposed to a proper noun like the Yggdrasil* tree*, I wouldn't capitalise. – FumbleFingers May 24 '22 at 10:13
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    (Capitalisation of books and movies is irrelevant here, because they're *titles*, not "nouns referring to entities", so they get capitalised the same way as newspaper headlines.) – FumbleFingers May 24 '22 at 10:15
  • Requesting your thoughts on my update , @FumbleFingers – Prem May 24 '22 at 15:30
  • My thoughts are in my own answer. Your wattle trees may not be as familiar to us as oaks sacred to Druids, or cow to Hindus, but that's no reason to put them on a higher pedestal by capitalising. – FumbleFingers May 25 '22 at 03:41
  • I was asking you about "WT" being at a high rate of usage, instead of the non-existent usage claimed in your answer ; Only "Wt" is at a very low rate of usage. These things support my answer : Do not use "Wt" ; Can use "WT" in context. Currently, the only thing I can update in my answer is : In general usage, "wt" is more common. @FumbleFingers – Prem May 25 '22 at 06:00
  • I certainly never claimed capitalised *The Wattle Tree* was "non-existent" - I just said *I* wouldn't do it, and *nor do most other writers. And both our charts clearly show that most written instances aren't* capitalised. I also backed up my general point with clear evidence that The cow* is sacred to Hindus* is almost never capitalised - but there's not a single instance of The wattle tree is sacred [to anyone] in Google Books, so I couldn't address that usage specifically. – FumbleFingers May 25 '22 at 10:52
  • Oh ok, I got it. I would like to change my Previous Comment to replace "claimed" with "indirectly implied", because in both your Charts, there is no "WT" ! Moving on : In my Chart, there is 1 Instance of "WT" for every 2 Instances of "wt", which is not negligible, indicating a common variant in usage. Similarly, there is 1 Instance of "Humour" for every 2 Instances of "Humor" indicating that one is a common variant of the other. @FumbleFingers – Prem May 25 '22 at 11:18
  • Okay, okay! I can't explain why I didn't happen to include "WT" in my charts - all I can say is I obviously had to include "The" or "the" before wt / Wt / WT / w-t / W-t / W-T, so that's 12 permutations. And "WT" only manages to account for 30% of usages in the past decade or two - any more than 20 years ago, that was an extremely rare orthography. Do you want to promote a "new" usage, or report on what most people have done in the past? Again with the "negligible" implications though. I never said anything like that before this very comment. – FumbleFingers May 25 '22 at 11:34