Capital S for society?

evil-monkey · 13-04-2010 02:13PM #1

Could someone please explain to me whether or not society should take a capital S in this sentence;

As a whole the collection points to the ongoing tension between society's desire to control sexuality and people's need to express it.

Thanks in advance.

seamus · 13-04-2010 02:19PM

You would generally be right in either instance. "Society" in that context could be taken to refer to a unique entity and would therefore be deserving of a capital letter.

You could remove any ambiguity by putting "a" before society. This would change the meaning so that it refers to any generic society and therefore it takes a lowercase s.

Eliot Rosewater · 13-04-2010 03:10PM

Society with a capital S would be a proper noun, a noun "representing unique entities". I would use the capital S myself, because the use of society in that sentence has an all-encompassing feel to it, as opposed to being "any given society".

evil-monkey · 13-04-2010 03:13PM

That's the question isn't it; can society be classed as a proper noun?

Permabear · 13-04-2010 03:27PM

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evil-monkey · 13-04-2010 03:37PM

What about reality? Is reality a place? And so get's a capital?

Permabear · 13-04-2010 04:01PM

This post has been deleted.

The Raven. · 14-04-2010 02:48AM

The capitalization is also frequently used in matters relating to Planning Applications, such as 'Protected Structures', 'Enforcement Notices', 'Environmental Impact Statements' etc. I presume that this may be to note that they are specific, legally established items of importance.

Capital S for society?

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