Why isn't "football" or "baseball" capitalized? Aren't these proper nouns?

[PinkOwl]

city=Orlando
dog=Snoopy
restaurant=McDonalds

Then why not...

sport=Baseball? or Football? or Soccer, with capital letter?

If you look in newspaper articles, the specific sports are not capitalized, and it's driving me crazy that I don't understand why not.

Does anyone have an explanation?

[Bucky]

1. one could construct an argument, but really it's random (like most things in human language)

The Germans get around it by capitalizing all nouns, but honestly that's not any better.

[JVS]

6. pronouns aren't capitalized, except for the 2nd person formal.

[Ineeda]

2. Grade two English: a proper noun is the name of a particular

person, place or thing. Not apple, school, newspaper, cigarette, but Mackintosh, Harvard, Tribune, Marlboro. The name of a particular football or baseball team or league should be capitalized but not the generic sport.

[stray cat]

3. Right - your name is capitalized the term person is not

[Bucky]

4. Exactly right. For instance you capitalize Monday October 19th, but not just any generic monday

Good call.

[Ineeda]

5. Hmmm. I was taught that the days of the week

just like the months in the year are capitalized.

[PinkOwl]

8. Football is a particular thing

Isn't it?

[Ineeda]

9. in other words you would capitalize

EVERY noun? Like bird, finger, shoe, pizza, book, rock, tennis racket, geranium? All of those things are 'particular things', too, by your estimation. The actual definition of "particular" is: –adjective 1. of or pertaining to a single or specific person, thing, group, class, occasion, etc., rather than to others or all; special rather than general. :) I hope this helps clarify.

[Dr. Strange]

11. Not when it's played by the Cowboys.

This gratuitous Dallas Cowboys bashing was brought to you by the Strange Institute for making fun of all things Romo.

[PinkOwl]

12. But does Toyota cease to be a particular thing when it's driven by John?

Wouldn't we say, "John is driving a Toyota"? Or would we say, "John is driving a toyota."

[JonLP24]

16. Toyota is a brand name

which is why it's capitalized. We would say, "John is driving a car which is a Toyota."

Kind of like, "John plays football in the National Football League."

I never had higher than a 'C' in English class so I'm not qualified to give you a proper answer.

[PinkOwl]

20. But Saturday is not a brand name

It's the name of one of the things that belong in the "day" category. Same as football is the name of one of the elements that make up the "sports" category.

[Ineeda]

23. Oh, groan. There are rules that govern language.

For heaven's sake, learn them instead of trying to find a way to dispute them!

[Ineeda]

17. trying to be patient here.

Toyota is always a specific brand, so always capitalized. If John was driving a Ford or Chevy, the rule is the same, but if John was driving a car, no caps. Any other questions? Or are you pulling my chain?

[fishwax]

25. football isn't really a particular thing

It's a number of things.

It is a smaller subcategory of sport, yes, but that doesn't make it a particular/proper noun or mean that it should be capitalized, any more than "tree" should be capitalized just because it is a subset of plant.

[JVS]

7. I would support a capitalization, particularly because these games are insitutional in nature.

kick the can, cards, dice not so much, but when you play Baseball, Football, Monopoly, etc. there is a very definite set of rules.

[Xithras]

18. Really? I can think of three completely different games called football.

In some parts of the world, the game we American's call rugby is called football. In most of the world, the game we Americans call soccer is called football. Here in America, we call our forward pass derivation of rugby "football".

For the past 2000 years, "football" or the local/temporal equivalent has been used to define pretty much any game that involves the use of a ball and your feet, including many games that you simply wouldn't recognize today. About 100 years ago, various playing organizations began to standardize some of the rules in some of the games, but the word is still very generic for "ball game that uses the feet".

As such, it shouldn't be capitalized.

[cleveramerican]

10. Major League Baseball- Yes/ baseball-no

National Football League- Yes

football or baseball alone, I would have to say no to capitals.

[KamaAina]

13. In its earliest days, the national pastime was indeed called Base Ball

two words.

[cherokeeprogressive]

14. Why don't they call an apple a "red"?

They call oranges oranges don't they?

[cleveramerican]

15. it would hurt the rasberries feelings.

[woofless]

19. Not to mention Granny Smith.

[PinkOwl]

21. No. Because "red" is an adjective. Football is not an adjective n/t

[cherokeeprogressive]

22. Orange is both an adjective and a noun. n/t

[Ineeda]

24. AGAIN, not all nouns are capitalized.

Several posters have patiently given you examples, including me. Are you deliberately being obtuse? Go right ahead - I'm done. x(

[yawnmaster]

26. Football not an adjective???

When I say football game, is football not modifying "game", a noun, thus making it an adjective?
discuss.