Bwuh...

[akashathekitty]

Capitalization confuzzles me like nobody's business, so I was just writing something and decided to research it a bit before I continued.

I found this and this just as the top hits from a simple googling

Comments

[marmaladefever]

Capitalize family relationships only when they are followed by a name:

Aunt Grace Uncle Fred my cousin grandmother mom

Cousin Vinnie

Okay, this one I don't entirely agree with. It's not so much whether there's a name after it, it's whether you're using it as a replacement for someone's name.

Like:

I called Mom.

I called my mom.

For some strange reason that's starting to bug me, I keep capitalizing "Common Room" and "First Years." I'm trying to stop. DX

[akashathekitty]

The Mom thing was one I was actually aware of! I ended up deciding that it's capitalized whenever you could directly replace it with a name (without removing any articles like the/a/my etc).

I think JKR occasionally capitalized those as well. And also randomly Headmaster etc. It's... REALLY annoying because it's so confusing.

ETA: from the link below:

Family relationships (when used as proper names)

I sent a thank-you note to Aunt Abigail, but not to my other aunts.

Here is a present I bought for Mother.

Did you buy a present for your mother?

[gryff_slytherin]

This is also a good site: The OWL at Purdue --> Capital Letters: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/592/01/

I live to use their grammar part of the site, when I have any questions: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/. I dunno, you might find it helpful too (not that I see any mistakes in your writing.) =)

[akashathekitty]

Grammar is ALWAYS helpful, thank you :D

[gryff_slytherin]

You're welcome. Oops, just noticed that I put "live" instead of "like". LOL.

[akashathekitty]

I actually downloaded a couple of grammar books as well. Just didn't look at them yet. Want me to share if they're easy/helpful? ;)