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Should I capitalise 'god' in the saying 'He's playing God' or not?

I looked at an old thread about capitalising 'god', but didn't see mention of this particular saying.

At the moment, I think I should, but I just wanted confirmation.

Any help will be gratefully received :)

millman97
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    Same as any other expression in the "old thread" – mplungjan Dec 08 '17 at 11:03
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    Capitalize it if you are referring to some specific, identifiable deity that is usually referred to as God, don't capitalize it if you are referring to any non-specific deity, a deity that usually goes by another name, or you just mean he is doing something that compares to the actions of some deity-like entity. – oerkelens Dec 08 '17 at 11:31
  • great thanks, that clears it up, so don't think it should be capitalised then, thanks! :D – millman97 Dec 08 '17 at 12:37
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    @oerkelens I respectfully disagree. Please see my answer for why. – tchrist Dec 08 '17 at 15:39
  • @millman97 It should be capitalized because the saying is in English and for the primary culture of English speakers which is Christianity, and that culture expects it to be capitalized. – Mitch Dec 08 '17 at 16:39
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    @millman97 Logical thought is one way to justify things. That may not be convincing enough, so check out google ngrams for 'playing God' vs 'playing god' and see that the first is way more common than the second. If you want to be boring and be like others, use 'God'. If you want to be an iconoclast, the envy of all your friends on your cellblock, the record holder for amount of sedation you can take before losing the ability to breathe, then write 'god' – Mitch Dec 08 '17 at 16:46
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    One point about that nGram. It looks like no one used to play God or otherwise before 1920, at least not in any considerable fashion. People had more respect back then – Mitch Dec 08 '17 at 17:08

2 Answers2

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You can play Friar Tuck or you can play a friar, Tuck. Notice the difference. For most native speakers it is ungrammatical to use play X where X is anything but a proper noun in English. Common nouns work differently.

You can “play God”, or you can “play a god”, but you cannot “play god”, which is miswritten. That’s because the last is an error in orthography revealed by the actual grammar.

Proper nouns and common nouns are two closely related but grammatically distinct parts of speech. Since these differ grammatically, you can (in most cases) distinguish one from the other when these form part of a spoken utterance.

As proof that this a distinction grammatical rather than orthographical, I present to you several sentences normalized to all capital letters and no punctuation. You will see that the proper nouns nonetheless remain completely identifiable bereft of any hinting.

  • MARY CALLED MOTHER AN ANGEL
  • MARY CALLED HER MOTHER AN ANGEL
  • MARY CALLED HER MOTHER GERTRUD
  • MY SISTER CALLED OUR MOTHER GERTRUDE
  • SISTER CALLED MOTHER GERTRUDE
  • SISTER MARY CALLED MOTHER GERTRUDE
  • HE SAID THE JUDGE WILL SEE YOU NOW
  • HE SAID JUDGE JONES WILL SEE YOU NOW
  • HAS THE MILKMAN BEEN BY YET TODAY
  • HAS MIKEY BEEN BY YET TODAY

Whether something should be capitalized as a proper noun is a writing effect driven by real grammar.

tchrist
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    I can see your point, but can't one play mother, or play cowboy? Or play doctor for that matter. – oerkelens Dec 08 '17 at 15:43
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    @oerkelens /me plays possum – tchrist Dec 08 '17 at 15:46
  • I'm ashamed to say I am a native speaker, but I just can't work this one out. – millman97 Dec 08 '17 at 16:03
  • @millman97 Do you mean that you can’t work out the puzzle of which of my ALL-CAPS NOUNS in my example sentences would be capitalized proper nouns and which ones uncapitalized common nouns? – tchrist Dec 08 '17 at 16:31
  • I can do your examples, but I'm still not sure about the god/God question. As both you and oerkelens make a lot of sense. :) – millman97 Dec 09 '17 at 10:04
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You only capitalize when referring to a specific god, like the Judeo-Christian God.

David Rojas
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