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When used as an adjective, can the word 'Antarctic' be spelled without a capital letter? I'm confused because 'Arctic' is always lower-cased when we use that as an adjective (e.g.: 'arctic fox', not 'Arctic fox').

coleopterist
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Elberich Schneider
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    It should be capitalized. – Luke_0 Aug 16 '12 at 19:02
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    Um, sure it can be Arctic fox: “The Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus) makes its home in small burrows in frost-free ground, often in low mounds, or in rock piles. Because the Arctic fox is a scavenger it can usually find food to eat.” Indeed, it’s quite common that way. – tchrist Aug 16 '12 at 20:16
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    @tchrist, indeed, so 'Arctic' CAN be capitalized as an adjective. But it often isn't. The question as to whether Antarctic can be left uncapitalized remains untouched. – JeopardyTempest Feb 11 '17 at 08:01

2 Answers2

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American English:

You should probably capitalize it, unless you don't.

According to Merriam Webster, whether you should capitalize "Antarctic" depends on context and individual style:

ant-arc-tic adj, often capitalized

of or relating to the south pole or to the region near it

So make a decision and stick with it, at least within the same document. However, there's a "geographical name" version of the word that is capitalized:

Ant-arc-tic Geographical name

Region including Antarctica, Antarctic peninsula, and the surrounding ocean.

The word "Arctic" has similar "rules".

British English:

Cambridge seems to indicate that the adjectival form of the word is always capitalized.

In general, you'd be safest capitalizing the word, but there are some specialized cases when you'd be okay not doing so. Personally, I'd capitalize it in all cases, to simplify the issue and to be more obviously consistent.

Community
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Goodbye Stack Exchange
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It seems that Arctic foxes are quite common compared with arctic foxes:

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Similarly here for Arctic expeditions versus arctic expeditions:

enter image description here

And even moreso for Antarctic expeditions versus antarctic expeditions:

enter image description here

tchrist
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    This question popped up to me while writing something meteorological. And it seems we have a unique unevenness in how we treat air masses. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Arctic+air%2Carctic+air&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=1&smoothing=10&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CArctic%20air%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Carctic%20air%3B%2Cc0 vs https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Antarctic+air%2C+antarctic+air&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=1&smoothing=10&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CAntarctic%20air%3B%2Cc0. – JeopardyTempest Feb 11 '17 at 08:03
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    The evenness for the Arctic would also overlap onto some (rare?) situations where one is actually describing air when located in the Arctic itself, which would definitely need to be Arctic ("When I left the North Pole station, I found realized that Arctic air really was freezing"). – JeopardyTempest Feb 11 '17 at 08:04
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    Perhaps the discrepancy is due to the relative emphasis on the importance on the science of meteorology by NH countries historically (all the major models are run by NH countries, many of the theories I think of off the top of my head come from places like the US, Norway, Japan, England, etc). Or that more people live in colder latitudes in the NH than the SH. But it's an interesting imbalance, and one that I feel odd not being consistent about! – JeopardyTempest Feb 11 '17 at 08:08