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Proper vs. common:
Canada/country
Canadian/human
Starbucks/coffee shop
The Da Vinci Code/book
New York Times/newspaper
Venus/planet (or goddess)
God/diety
Capitalize the noun if it has a specific identity (e.g. it's Starbucks, not Tim Hortons...get your coffee shops right....or: my country is Canada, not America)
Common nouns have no specific or unique identity, as in they are a "common" thing of many varieties.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 04-18-2009 at 03:08 PM..
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