Which Words Should Start With Capitals? ....

[The Builder]

Discussion in the pub last night.

Which words in this sentence should begin with a capital letter ...........

"The commanding officer asked the flying officer if he had seen the commander."

Not a trick question. The chap would really like to know, but there were varying opinions.

[bednobs]

"Giving capital letters to military and police ranks and appointments IS a standard convention of the English language as a whole and not just when the language is used such people themselves. It applies to other professions, too. Consequently, it has nothing whatsoever to do with what any such professionals "think of themselves""
then why the sniffiness about non-milliatary people answering?

[jno]

Quizmonster, I recall an Australian newspaper that refused even to capitalise "sir". But my post was meant to be read in conjunction with my earlier one: that saying "Constable Smith" is fine, but saying "the Constable" - even later in the same sentence about Smith - is rare; it's normally "the constable". Same for the major, the minor and the son of a sea-cook. And that was the model proposed in the original post.

[weecalf]

Strange name but if if was the flying officers name then if ,if it was his name should have the capital letter

[Quizmonster]

Oh dear, oh dear!
The sentence in the OP was, quite evidently, one related to a military situation and all three of the ranks/appointments (see line 1 of my response at 0730 today) were preceded by the word ‘the’. Thus, we were clearly dealing with quite specific people and posts in a quite specific environment…one I know like the back of my hand. Had it been another environment I was unfamiliar with, such as a hospital, I would probably have skated on by on the basis that – as I explained earlier – I didn’t “know a blessed thing about it”.

For example, had I been asked to comment on where capitals should be used in a sentence such as, “the sister was rapidly on the scene with the matron hot on her heels,” I would probably (a) just have ignored the question as explained above, but - had some mad compulsion to respond fallen upon me - I would certainly have written, “The Sister was rapidly on the scene with the Matron hot on her heels.” Note the two uses of ‘the’ preceding the posts and the two capitals.

Flying Officer is the name of a specific RAF rank and is, as such, effectively a proper noun and thus necessitates capitals.

I’m sure The Builder must be getting rather tired of this by now; I certainly am!

[stuey]

To add another tier to this discussion: when to capitalize the names of relatives.

"I asked my father if it was possible for me to have a raise in my allowance."
The word "father", in my opinion, should not be capitalized.

"I walked up to my father and asked "Is it possible, Father, for me to have a raise in my allowance?"
The capitalized and uncapitalized uses of the word "father", to me, are correct.

[Khandro]

stuey; I don't see any reason for your father to get a capital (no disrespect to him :-) but I think Pilgrim Fathers possibly get them. ?

[stuey]

But in my second use of the word in my second example, I am using the word as a form of address, so I think it should be capitalized. I suppose, by the way, that "Is it possible, Father..." should have been in single quotation marks. I agree with "Pilgrim Fathers".