Capitalising the definite article in names
When I was a youngster some mumble-mumble-mumble decades ago, I was taught that, in the instances of names of persons, places, and things which carried the definite article the, the article wasn’t capitalised. Hence, the Batman, the Empire State Building, the Medal of Honor.
In the last twenty years or so, I have seen the capitalisation of the in names proliferate. Now, it’s The Batman, The Empire State Building, The Medal of Honor. When I point this out as an error, I’m generally met with the argument, “No, those are names, and all words in a name are capitalised.”
Did I get it wrong, way back when? Or is it one of those things in which style has trumped rule, and now the standard is to capitalise the definite article in names?
You only capitalize The when it is the first word in a title of book or a play (etc), because the The is included in that name:
- We watched The Untouchables reruns all afternoon.
- I haven’t read The Treason of Isengard yet.
- My favorite film of his is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
In contrast, the word the is not normally capitalized in front of proper nouns that aren’t titles, like the New York Metropolitan Opera, the Rockies, the Bronx, the Tender Loin, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Beatles, the Chicago Board of Trade, the Fourth of July holiday, the Mesozoic Era, the Lincoln Memorial, the Thames, the Orkneys, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United Kingdom, the Black Sea, the River Nile, the American President, the Berkshires, the United States of America, the Sierra Quemada, the Age of Enlightenment, the Battle of Hastings, the Old Pretender, the Maastrict Treaty, the European Union, and so on and so forth.
However, there are notable exceptions. For example:
As a compromise, Brussels and The Hague alternated as capital every two years, with the government remaining in The Hague. After the separation of Belgium in 1830, Amsterdam remained the capital of the Netherlands, while the government was situated in The Hague.
There is no rule to determine whether a particular name begins with an article: it is up to the namer of the thing. The article is capitalized when it is a part of the name, and not when it is not.