I was just editing a story where one of the characters is known to his underlings as the Old Bastard. Now that I wrote that out again, I am wondering if I should be capitalizing "The" as well. I think so? Anyway, other characters refer to him as The Old Bastard. What happens when one of them call him an "old bastard?" As a way of describing him, as an insult to his face. "You son of a bitch, you old bastard!" "You really are an old bastard, you know that?" Not the simplest thing to Google, so I was hoping to get some thoughts on this subject. Thanks eh !
That's a good one and I'm really not sure. I pulled some Cormac McCarthy from my shelf. He uses nicknames exclusively for certain characters with no proper names ever provided. The man, the boy, the judge, the kid: none of which are capitalized. Cormac might be a bad example, as he doesn't use quotation marks or commas (in most instances) either, so the lack of capitals shouldn't be a surprise. I feel for some reason that you shouldn't capitalize any of it if the character already has a proper name, but I can't say why. I guess it depends on how "hard" the nickname is... whether it's used as a universal stand-in for the proper name or just as a general epithet. A capital "The" would look weird to me, but that might the correct usage. And I think you definitely don't want to capitalize the generic "old man" term in your example, but maybe that would be confusing as well. So, yeah, I have no idea. Ask @Seven Crowns.
In the first draft, and through a few edits, I didn't capitalize any of it. It was just now that I was thinking the nickname should probably be capitalized. He does have a proper name, and it's used on three occasions. If the answer is to simply not capitalize anything, boy, that would make things a lot simpler.
If you're following Chicago Manual (which I always defer to for style questions), it would be Section 8.34. 8.34 Epithets (or nicknames) and bynames. A descriptive or characterizing word or phrase used as part of, or instead of, a person's name is capitalized. A the used as part of such a name is not capitalized. the Great Emancipator (Abraham Lincoln) the Sun King (Louis XIV) Old Hickory (Andrew Jackson) If you're just calling him a name, it's lowercased. Old Bastard really is an old bastard. He drives 45 in the fast lane.
" Capitalizing nicknames Nicknames are considered proper nouns. Hence, it must be capitalized in sentences. Moreover, the term endearment will not be capitalized. Example 1 − She was known as Magic in her hometown. Example 2 − People called him Fuzzy for always causing disputes." Reference: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/capitalization-rules-in-writing
