Capitalisation (was naming Dementors)

[David]

No: HPFGUIDX 28905

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., frantyck at y... wrote:
 
> Minor aside: in the "authorised biography" of Rowling 
(Conversations 
> with JK Rowling, Scholastic 2000, $4.99 US), the interviewer 
Lindsey 
> Fraser ("a leading children's book enthusiast") does an overview of 
> the series, in which she consistently refers to Dementors as, and I 
> quote, "dementors." Lower case, no capital letter. In my 
(Bloomsbury) 
> editions, 'Dementor' always has a capital D.

Seriously nitpicky but still on-topic:  in a recent post I mentioned 
various Beasts and Beings, and gradually got more and more confused 
about what to capitalise.

I remember thinking that if Dementor has a capital D, then Giant 
should have a capital G - but then shouldn't wizard have a capital 
W?  That seemed wrong, so I made an arbitrary decision (by some 
ghastly oversight of the moderators, sorry, Moderators, list rules do 
allow this) and posted anyway.  I later checked FB and found what 
seems to be the following rule: words which are already known in 
English, such as centaur and phoenix get lowercase; new words such as 
Fwooper and Quintaped, get uppercase.  In which case it should be 
giant, not Giant.

In one post I was inordinately pleased with myself for using Boggart 
to refer to the creature (why isn't it in FB?), and boggart for our 
greatest fear, into which a Boggart would transform.

Perhaps someone could do a thorough survey of all the books on this 
vitally important question for today's troubled world.

If you have read this far and are nodding sagely, the nice young men 
in their long white coats are knocking at your door.

David

"If you think Dementors are scary, wait till you meet their mothers"