Town or town?

[AnyaKimlin]

I'm sure this is my grammar checker being weird but it says town in this sentence should be capitalised:

The summer sunshine brought half the town of Umber Bridge into the great outdoors and what began as a pleasant stroll with the kids turned into tedious meet and greet.

 

[Toby Frost]

Definitely lower case. I'd put that down to grammar checker going weird.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Thanks. I thought it was but realised I had no idea why I thought that . Decided to double check as it is in the first couple of paragraphs of a story.

 

[Alexander Lesnoy]

Yes, definitely lower case for town as it's a common noun. Only proper nouns should be rendered in upper case, as far as I know.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

If it had been anywhere else in the book I wouldn't have checked. But it was the "as far as I know" bit that made me wonder because it is in the second paragraph.

 

[Pyan]

Toby's correct - it's only capitalised as a proper name as in the local football club (Ipswich Town, Mansfield Town), or the name of the council (Romsey Town Council).
The only exception I can think of is "The Little Town of Bethlehem"...

 

[HareBrain]

The grammar checker is definitely wrong, but there is a kind of logic to it. For example, in "the City of Liverpool" the c of City is capitalised, because it's part of the proper noun. The programmers maybe expected Town to be used in the same way.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Spartan... It always wants it capitalised... Grrr. Spellchecker of evil.

 

[Tecdavid]

HareBrain has a point. If "town" is part of the place's name, and it's referred to as the Town of Umber Bridge rather than simply Umber Bridge, then you would capitalise it. Otherwise not.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I'm thinking of naming it Spartan Town lol.

 

[mosaix]

Agree - definitely lower case.

 

[farntfar]

Please drive carefully trough the village.
but
Every time No. 6 tried to leave The Village, Rover would come and get him.


(And I've played the wild rover for many a year...)

 

[WIEganson]

When "town" is part of the name, or when it is being used to refer to a specific place, it is capitalized, e.g., "the Town of Ipswitch is in Massachusetts."

If it is being used descriptively, then it is lowercase, e.g., "Ipswitch is a town in Massachusetts."

 

[jastius]

but anya refers to the people in the excerpt as 'half the Town ' as in half the townspeople.. in this case town isn't used as the name of the place but as the collective for the group of people of the town... because it wasn't the buildings that moved, it was the people that came out. so place name rules don't apply.. but as a personal collective refering to a group of persons.. say 'half the women's auxilary' or 'half the congregation' .. it might.. ten minutes ago i was certain it was capitalized because it acts in the place of a name for a group of people, now i am rethinking.. but i am fairly certain that if it is used in place of a proper name for a specific group as a designation it would be capitalized.. the same way that 'Ladies and Gentlemen' are capitalized whenever you address that specific group as an identifier.