Capital S for society?

evil-monkey

Could someone please explain to me whether or not society should take a capital S in this sentence;

As a whole the collection points to the ongoing tension between society's desire to control sexuality and people's need to express it.

Thanks in advance.

seamus

You would generally be right in either instance. "Society" in that context could be taken to refer to a unique entity and would therefore be deserving of a capital letter.

You could remove any ambiguity by putting "a" before society. This would change the meaning so that it refers to any generic society and therefore it takes a lowercase s.

Eliot Rosewater

Society with a capital S would be a proper noun, a noun "representing unique entities". I would use the capital S myself, because the use of society in that sentence has an all-encompassing feel to it, as opposed to being "any given society".

evil-monkey

That's the question isn't it; can society be classed as a proper noun?

Permabear

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evil-monkey

What about reality? Is reality a place? And so get's a capital?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

The Raven.

The capitalization is also frequently used in matters relating to Planning Applications, such as 'Protected Structures', 'Enforcement Notices', 'Environmental Impact Statements' etc. I presume that this may be to note that they are specific, legally established items of importance.