sannse wrote:

I'm in agreement [with Tannin] here. One of my own areas of interest, dog breeds, has a similar issue. So far the capitalised versions have (mostly) held here, but it would be nice to clarify the issue and be sure of a consensus.

In the case of dog breeds, all my books on the subject (five) capitalise, as do the various kennel clubs. I've been careful to check in each case - it's "Airedale Terrier" but "Maltese terrier" for example. I would like to move "Chesapeake Bay retriever" back to "Chesapeake Bay Retriever" to follow this principle.

Dog breeds seem, as a rule, to be a special case. All the research I've done has indicated that most dog breeds are /almost always/ capitalized whenever they are written.

The only exceptions seem to be with the really well-known breeds. In fact I spent an hour "fixing" the capitalization of the [[List of dog breeds]] page only to find this out - it was darn difficult to find many sources that did not capitalize the breeds. So I reverted myself.

But when you think about it the reason becomes fairly obvious ; dog breeds are an invention of selective breeding with well-known pedigrees and historys (almost like a family history). This is similar to the names scientists have given to certain "breeds" of mice that have been selected for a specific purpose.

That type of specificity turns what looks at first blush to be a common noun into something that looks a lot like a proper noun.

Thus the capitalization.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)