Capitalisation Of Job Titles

[mosaix]

If a title or profession is used in conjunction with a name as in "This is Driver-Technician Smith." then I would tend to capitalise. On the other hand "In the right hand seat sat a driver-technician." then I would tend not to.

On the other hand I might say "In the right hand seat sat a Doctor."

How about 'over to the right were the Nurses quarters' and 'over to the right were the cleaners quarters.'

I suppose it's the difference between a profession and a job. One is a title the other a description. But there are some grey areas as in 'Driver-Technician'. How about radio operator? radar operator? pilot? astronaut?

Any hard and fast rules?

 

[Hex]

um... I'd go with the initial rule. I wouldn't have capitalised "doctor" in your example, unless the context was something like:

"Many of them had PhDs, but not all. In the left hand seat there was a plain Mr but..."

(and I'm not even very sure about that).

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Titles generally shouldn't be capitalized unless they are being used with the person's name.

The president spoke today. President Miller said we should...

I asked Doctor Blake. The doctor said....

I would not capitalize Doctor or Nurse as you did, in those sentences. If a Doctor were sitting in the seat next to me, I would hope beyond hope that it was David Tennant.

 

[tinkerdan]

My vote is with thedustyzebra today.

This could easily be seen as a style issue and there might be variance to the type of style the editors are using, but a good rule of thumb is that if it's presented as a part of a persons name it is capitalized, otherwise it should not.

The doctor.
Doctor Smith.
The nurse.
Nurse Betty.

The nurse's quarters.
The captain's quarters.

Gregg Reference Manual has some interesting if not further confusing information.
Titles of nation officials, state officials, foreign dignitaries, international figures are to always keep the capitalization.

Also it seems that if Nurses Lounge or Nurses Quarters is the proper name for the location it would remain capitalized.