SFWG Study Hall

I usually capitalize all races in the context where other races are around, and capitalize "human" as well while in that context. I feel it changes the rules, when other intelligences enter the mix. Races become something akin to nationalities.

Actually in my current Novel effort, "Seryahdin", I'm rotating through several different viewpoints, and different characters actually use this word differently (due to coming out of different cultures). Some mean "human" to mean all members of Genus Homo, while others to mean specifically Homo Sapiens (the other races in this story are all cousins of Homo Sapiens who were genetically engineered about ten thousand years in the past.) For those whom "human" means all races, "human" isn't capitalized, but the word they use for Homo Sapiens (Osen, plural Ose) is capitalized, as are all the other race names. For those that use "Human" specifically to mean Homo Sapiens, Human is capitalized.

It's driving me nuts, and I've already spotted a number of places where I have it wrong.

I also have the problem of deciding whether "Spook" (in this story, being used as a generic term for magic users and magical critters by one set of humans) should be capitalized in that context, and I don't have it consistent in the text, and whether "Witch" (being used by another set of humans to refer to magic users) should be capitalized. The ones saying "Spook" are modern Americans. The ones saying "Witch" are English speakers of a non-Earthly culture emigrated several centuries ago from the British Isles to another world.

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Regards,
Eric Fretheim
(Eric The Fred)