Proper noun?

W

Wabajack

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Jan 16, 2007
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Alright, here’s a question for all of you grammatically erudite people. In this sentence excerpt “the White race.” is ‘white’ a common noun or a proper noun???

Should it be capitalized?
 
In this sentence excerpt “the White race.” White is an adjective, not a noun. Normally it would be uncapitalized in that position, but since it's designating a group and not the color, capitalization is all right. In fact, i would capitalize it to avoid misunderstanding.
 
Thanks. :)

What can be said for "white people". Should 'white' be capitalized mid-sentence as in the previous excerpt?
 
As opposed to albinos? For that same reason, yes, I would capitalize White to distinguish it from the simple color reference. We do something similar when we write "The White House", instead of "the big white house the President lives in".

Incidentally, this is not carved in stone. Lexicography today leans towards common usage rather than antique rules. This doesn't mean a free-for-all, since common sense can trump common usage, and that's what I'm applying here: a way to distinguish rather than allow details to be lost.

But I've noticed in recent years that newspaper style sheets often seem to lean towards uncials where I would use capitals, including what I believe was originally a British usage of capitalizing only the first letter of acronyms, like writing NATO as Nato. I suppose some day we'll be living in the good old Usa rather than the USA. :p
 
The White Race.

Race is the verb meaning a contest of some sort like a maybe running race to see who can run a mile the fastest.

White is the noun. Is it a proper noun or a common noun? That will depend on context, who or what White is.

Consider this sentence: Brown is on loading dock number one and Blue is on loading dock number two. Are Brown and Blue proper nouns? It depends on context. If this sentence is given in response to the question, "Which trucks are those?" and Brown is slang for UPS because of their brown corporate colors and Blue is a reference to Federal Express because of their blue-dominated corporate color scheme, then Blue and Brown are proper nouns and capitalized. But, if the original question is, "What colors should I paint the loading docks? and brown and blue are just colors of paint, then they are common nouns and not capitalized.

In the original sentence, "The white race," if white is just a reference to a color meaning, perhaps, that white is a good color for a fast car, then it's a common noun. If it's a reference to, say, a relay team which distinguishes themselves with their bleached-white uniforms or maybe a race horse named for his very white color or some such thing, then it is a proper noun. Inasmuchas the sentence specifies "The White," I tend to think is probably is referring to a specific person(s) or thing and a proper noun, but you can't be sure without knowing the context.

The fact that the verb is race instead of races is somewhat telling. Two horses race, but one races. So, we know that whatever it is, white is plural. If white were singular, the sentence would be, "The White Races." The color white is singular. So, in the sentence, "The White race." White apparently does not refer to the color white. That makes it much more likely that The White is a proper noun, prehaps a track team. And they race.
 
Gollnick's answer is very good. I like it because I don't believe in the concept of race as color.

For bigotry purposes, it's a compound noun. As to whether it's proper, that's up to the user, but generally it wouldn't be.

Phil
 
I say again, "white" or "White" in these contexts is not a noun, it is an adjective. Regardless of your beliefs, "white" or "black" or "yellow" or "red" are often used as descriptors of what the users call "race", even though the term race is used sociologically, even if they think it's biological.

A reasonable definition of proper and common as they refer to nouns is:
Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as London or John), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city or person).

In English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, proper nouns are usually capitalised.
Click to expand...

Adjectives fall outside this classification but these definitions of nouns come from classical usage -- Latin and Greek. Since modern English has developed a fairly different grammar from these archaic languages, we find structural overlapping between nouns and those adjectives derived from nouns.
 
There's no such a thing as a 'white race', or a 'black race' or 'red' or whatever. There's a 'human' race that the entire population of the world belongs to, but to break it down beyond that needs to be done by distinctions other than race, such as nation, religion, etc...
 
Your definition of race is beside the point. The original poster was asking about the grammatical usage of the words.

And there is such a thing as a 'white race', or a 'black race' or 'red' or whatever. It may be a poor reflection of reality, but it is a concept in some people's worldview.
 
Pointed said:
There's no such a thing as a 'white race', or a 'black race' or 'red' or whatever. There's a 'human' race that the entire population of the world belongs to, but to break it down beyond that needs to be done by distinctions other than race, such as nation, religion, etc...
Click to expand...

Esav Benyamin said:
Your definition of race is beside the point. The original poster was asking about the grammatical usage of the words.

And there is such a thing as a 'white race', or a 'black race' or 'red' or whatever. It may be a poor reflection of reality, but it is a concept in some people's worldview.
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Even that strong or rapid current of water flowing through a narrow channel on Arkansas' White River or the channel itself would be called the White race........or perhaps the White Race is more proper. Not to be confused with a bearing track made by White Manufacturing. :confused:





:D
j
 
If not, then I'd say it's a small 'w', not capital, or it could be one of those definitions that eventually makes it’s way into dictionaries from common useage.
 
Since modern English has developed a fairly different grammar from these archaic languages, we find structural overlapping between nouns and those adjectives derived from nouns.
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I have been told that comparing the grammar of any creole language (like english) to that of any older "proper" language does not make much sense except for research linguists.

TLM
 
It can make sense. English is not a naive language: it has a long tradition of literacy and discussion of its grammar, almost all in terms of its origins in the classical languages and in the similarly structured Germanic languages from which it was more directly descended. It is not combined of significantly disparate elements.
 
"English is not a naive language: it has a long tradition of literacy and discussion of its grammar, almost all in terms of its origins in the classical languages and in the similarly structured Germanic languages"

No one said it is naive, it is just that it is so young in comparison and had (probably) a very different origin.

TLM
 
By naive, I meant that it is not simply a spoken language with no tradition of self-study. The languages from which it developed were closely related, some of which had traditions of linguistics.

"Creole" is a general term. If we take it as the end point of a mixed communication system starting from a pidgin and developing into a creole, English doesn't qualify. It developed from stable languages in use by core communities that gradually merged many of their characteristics. One of these communities eventually became the language model for the entire population.
 
"Creole" is a general term.
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As I was once explained by a linguist it started out as a term for an under class/over class or slave/master language developed by the lower part from the upper part language with (of course) a lot of influence from their original language.

Later it also acquired the meaning of the result of a more even mixed language often resulting from the mingling of speakers. English well qualifies for that.

Any mixed language newly developed is not stable regardless of the originals.

I have sometimes tried to find a not-too-detailed-account of the relative influences of the two germanic languages, latin, celtic and norman early french but have not found one.

TLM
 
Technically-speaking, a Creole is an established, stable language that begins from another language or, sometimes, a mix of several other languages, but develops unique characteristics of its own. A language which combines several other languages but lacks unique characterists of its own is a Pidgin.

Sometime, Creole languages do take on class relationships, but that's a different subject entirely and is not a necessary trait of a Creole.
 
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