Quick grammar/spelling advice please?

[Deleted User] · 15/01/12 - 22:59

Hi there!
Just have an essay I've got a quick query over (medieval English, due tomorrow, should have done it earlier I know

)
When saying "a knight of King Arthur's court" , do "knight" and "court" need to be capitalised?
Also the same with "the queen of King Arthur's court", capitalised or not?
Finally, "medieval England", does medieval need to be capitalised?

Thank you, getting my German and English nouns mixed up!
x

Gaditano · 15/01/12 - 23:06

Court, knight and medieval - no capitals.

Queen - not so sure but I would capitalise if you were naming a specific queen, but not if you're not.

[Deleted User] · 15/01/12 - 23:10

If the Queen refers specifically to a named person, ie Guinevere, then it should be captalised.

Knight is an occupation in the court like cook or servant or maid so that does not need a capital.

Medieval England is a specific period in British history like the Ice Age or Dark Ages so I would capitalise it.

I would not capitalise court.

[Deleted User] · 15/01/12 - 23:53

Thanks so much!

John259 · 16/01/12 - 07:53

One solution with these questions is to try to find a professionally written article on the web which includes the phrases. Online encyclopedias are often useful but not the only possibility.

gomezz · 16/01/12 - 09:42

Recast the sentence so that it starts with Medieval.

esquilax · 16/01/12 - 14:47

By the way, I believe "mediaeval" is the traditional British spelling and "medieval" is the American spelling. No one's likely to mark you down for spelling it without the "a" these days, though.

gomezz · 16/01/12 - 14:53

Mediaeval or Mediæval?

[Deleted User] · 16/01/12 - 15:07

Both spelling are correct - but the simplified spelling is used more often - and in most university course names

gomezz · 16/01/12 - 15:09

Both? There are three accepted spellings.

mrkite77 · 16/01/12 - 22:09

gomezz wrote: »

Both? There are three accepted spellings.

No. The ligature you used is simply a typographical affectation, it's *not* a separate character.

It's even part of the unicode standard that the ligature "æ" is identical to "ae".

Here's proof in Ruby:

irb(main):001:0> "Mediæval".length
=> 9
irb(main):002:0> "Mediaeval".length
=> 9

Both 9 characters long.

gomezz · 17/01/12 - 00:14

I would rather rely on the authority of an etymologist than a computer programmer.

jsmith99 · 17/01/12 - 01:34

Only when it comes to bugs, surely?

gomezz · 17/01/12 - 12:10

You need to consult either an etymologist or an entymologist either of whom should be able to explain it to you.

jsmith99 · 18/01/12 - 13:10

I'm glad someone appreciated my rather weak joke.

Hey there!

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Quick grammar/spelling advice please?

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