Funny enough, one of the most common errors I come across when I’m editing is one of the simplest, and one that we all learn very early in primary school. It has to do with the capitalisation of proper nouns vs common nouns.
There are a lot of instances in which people make mistakes, but the one I want to deal with today has to do with family relationships, and how we refer to our parents, aunties, uncles, etc.
There’s a tendency to capitalise the word Mom, for example, regardless of the context. But remember that if we’re using the word generically, there’s no need to capitalise. If it’s a form of address, we do. Meaning you say: “Is that your mom over there?” (No capital M as you are referring to the person, not addressing them, and there are a dozen moms in the room.)
But we say, “You make the best shepherd’s pie in the world, Mom!” (Because you’re talking to the person. And yes, I do make the best shepherd’s pie in the world.)
You can also be talking about the person but using their title, as in, “Did you ask Mummy if you can sleep over this weekend?”
The same goes for other relationships. You say, “Your auntie is on the phone,” but you also say, “Auntie Aggie is on the phone”.
We cool now? Good.
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