Talk:Sue Gordon

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An entry from Sue Gordon appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 3 May 2007.

[edit] Capitalisation

I was drawn into editing this excellent article by a couple of ordinary typos but then noticed there was some uncertainty about when to use cap initials for, eg, 'state' and 'aboriginal'. We were taught in school to distinguish between a common noun (uncapitalised) and a proper noun which is always capitalised in English. It is a rule of printing practice that a spelling standard should be applied consistently throughout a document. Therefore, because I saw 'aboriginal' more often than 'Aboriginal', I standardised for the former. However, I then looked at Australia's official Style Manual ^[1].

"When referring to the first inhabitants of Australia, prefer the forms Aboriginal (singular noun), Aboriginals (plural noun) and Aboriginal (adjective). While the form Aborigine is not acceptable as an alternative to Aboriginal for the singular noun, Aborigines may be used as an alternative plural form. These words should be dignified with a capital letter in the same way as Maori, Negro and Red Indian [emphasis added].

I find it hard to argue with that ruling. The protocol is also well covered in the Wikipedia article Indigenous Australians, under 'Definitions'. In the case of 'state', there can be little difficulty in distinguishing its common vs proper uses, even in the hallowed WA term "eastern states". However, some Australian newspapers have adopted the standard State for the political entity. Newspapers generally assume a mental age of 14 in their readers (:-).Bjenks 02:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

1. ^ Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers of Australian Government Publications (3rd Edn) AGPS Canberra 1978