-1

Is it safe to assume that if a person regularly spells "God" with a lower case letter g for a whole book that he is trying to portray to you that he is not religious?

Why do some writers do this when it is clear that the g should be upper case?

Neil Meyer
  • 277
  • 3
    There are any number of reasons a writer might choose to do that. There's a whole movement of people who lowercase their own names and the pronoun "I," presumably to de-emphasize the ego in pop culture. Maybe it's similar to that. Or maybe this writer was writing about a god, without using the word as a proper noun. Without context, this is unanswerable. So I would say no, it's not safe, but that's just my opinion. – Jason Melançon Aug 05 '15 at 12:30
  • 3
    Please give an actual example. What is this book? There are plenty of gods in mythology that can be described as "a god", "that god" or just "gods". I do tend to agree that 'God' as a name should have an upper-case letter, regardless of which god you are describing. – chasly - supports Monica Aug 05 '15 at 12:31
  • 4
    What do you mean "it is clear that the g should be upper case"? – Jake Regier Aug 05 '15 at 12:32

1 Answers1

6

The Gramarist offers a 'grammatical' view on this issue:

  • God is capitalized when it functions as a name. In this use, God is a proper noun like any other name and does not take a definite or indefinite article. But in phrases like the Biblical god and a forgiving god, which do have articles, there’s no need to capitalize god because it is a common noun rather than a name—yet many religiously inclined writers still capitalize the word in these instances

  • When the noun god is used generically, especially in reference to a non-Biblical god, it is not capitalized.

  • English speakers also traditionally capitalize the pronoun He in reference to God. This remains a common practice among people of faith, but it is by no means obligatory.

  • In phrases like for God’s sake, by God, and thank God, the word is capitalized because it generally refers to the god of the Bible and treats the word as a name.

Community
  • 1
  • 4
    Both Deuteronomy and Exodus contain the phrase "You shall have no other gods before Me."; which distinctly does not preclude the existence of other gods. That implies the possibility of a set of gods, all of which may be called god; and if they're being addressed directly, God. – Wayfaring Stranger Aug 05 '15 at 14:15