0

When I write, I treat references as though they are proper nouns; for example, Chapter 10, Section 10, Line 10, Page 10. (As opposed to chapter 10, section 10, line 10, page 10 - no capital letter.)

[My short forms would be Ch.10, s.10, l.10, p.10]

Until now, I've never been picked up on it. I wrote a piece that involved numerous references to numbered lines. Here is an example from my piece:

Ham makes further attempts to connect with the reader in Line 26, where she writes...

This was corrected to "line 26" (no capital).

I can't really explain why I think references should be capitalised, but I surely must have picked it up from somewhere.

So, my question is - if not common practice, is there anything wrong with capitalising (line) references? Are there any style guides that have a preference for capitalised references?

Dog Lover
  • 6,445
  • 1
    I'd not be inclined to capitalize unless the lines are captioned "Line 26", et al. If they are simply numbered, eg, in the right margin then the reference is not a "proper name". – Hot Licks Sep 07 '17 at 02:26
  • @HotLicks I was actually thinking about that just then. Indeed, they were numbered in the margin without the word "Line". – Dog Lover Sep 07 '17 at 02:28

0 Answers0