Capital letters help... posting for traffic

[QueenArnica]

Morning all,

Please help settle a (friendly) dispute with a colleague.

We are writing primary school reports and disagree on this issue...

I say when writing about the subjects, e.g. In maths, Sam is beginning to blah blah blah, the subject (in this case maths) should not have a capital letter. The same with science, music etc with the only exceptions being English and French and PE and RE.

They say ALL the subjects should be capitalised regardless.

Who’s right? Thanks in advance, I’m on my 3rd coffee already and need to start writing

Surely it's head of department?

Would you write about the prime minister or the US president, though? That would look very odd to me. Maybe if you were saying "I am a head of year" but surely not "I am the head of year at Elmbrook Primary School" ?!

why would you use capitals for PE or RE? Surely they would be pe or re as well,

Capitalisation in those cases indicates that each letter is pronounced by its letter name and not as a word. There is a difference between RE and re - which is a commonly used word itself - so re amongst a list of subjects makes no sense.

Interesting question - I think I probably write Maths on a school report.

But I find there's a huge amount of capitalisation around generally - as an example, today I am looking at this for work: www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-response-to-the-digital-culture-media-sport-select-committee-report-on-immersive-and-addictive-technologies

The title makes my brain hurt!

Government response to the Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee Report on Immersive and Addictive Technologies

I would just say UK government responds to committee report on immersive and addictive technologies.

The other thing is defining everything. I understand that in a legal contract (Contract) but not in a press release (Press Release).

For example, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced today that it is making a couple of holiday rental companies issue refunds. It will define CMA as I have done above but surely it is blindingly obvious that CMA refers to Competition and Markets Authority.

You also see it when organisations refer to Google Inc and then define it as Google. You don't say.

Capitalisation in those cases indicates that each letter is pronounced by its letter name and not as a word. There is a difference between RE and re - which is a commonly used word itself - so re amongst a list of subjects makes no sense.

Good point. You could always write p. e. or r. e., though, with a dot to indicate removed letters and to make it clear that it isn't to be pronounced as a word.