In my WIP, the colloquial equivalent of "what the hell" would be "what the Depths," referring to a specific location: the Muddy Depths. I know that if I were to refer to the Muddy Depths explicitly I should capitalize them. I also know to capitalize, for example, the States when referring to the United States . What I'm not sure is if I need to capitalize the shorthand of just "Depths" or not. I'm inclined to think that I should, but I feel it makes the expression stand out too much when it's capitalized. Thoughts?
Yeah, if it's a reference to the name of a specific place, it's a proper noun, and those get capitals even if they're short forms. (Some style guides allow Hell to not be capitalized in a "what the hell?" context because it's not clearly referencing an actual place and instead is just a sort of general obscenity. So.. "What the hell? We're in Hell?" might actually be grammatically correct.)
