Looks like a great forum. Now English is not my first language but I have lived in the US for 20+ years and I think I'm doing OK . I write a small (almost) daily blog about my lunch and I'm terrible confused about using capitalization when describing food. Link to blog in my profile but here's todays entry: On a cold and blustery day waiting for the snow to start falling I needed something hearty and Mr. Chan's in Burlington have recently added a Traditional Chinese menu (pdf). I spied Chicken in Curry Sauce over Rice and since that's one of my favorite dishes, off I went. (Picture) I have to admit that the Chicken in Curry Sauce over Rice was really good. Plenty of Chicken and Sauce and the Onions and Peppers were nicely cooked as well. This is the mild Chinese curry and the sauce nicely soaks into the rice making the whole thing a delightful mess! A humongous portion for $7.95 and that's the regular menu price. I like $7.95 because with tax and a good tip it comes out to $10 even. Now I like how it looks with items capitalized (menu is the first sentence probably should have been capitalized as well) but what do the writers in here think?
The rule here, as I see it, is based on what is a title (needs capitalization) and what is not. In English, capitalization is not correctly used just to emphasize. So, the titles of the dishes ("Chicken in Curry Sauce") can reasonably be capitalized, as titles, though it would be just as correct to treat them as descriptions and leave off the capitalization. The ingredients ("plenty of chicken and sauce, and the onions and...") should not be capitalized. I would treat the menu as a description and not capitalize it ("traditional Chinese menu") but if you instead treat it as a title, it should all be capitalized, as you mention ("Traditional Chinese Menu"). Edited to add: Of course, in your personal blog, you can do what you like. But looking at your blog, I think that you have a nice writing voice with good personality, and that the extra capitalized words distract from that personality, rather than adding to it.
Thank you both for the input I redid my last entry and I suspected that this is the way it should be since I looked for a place to get feedback. Thanks again.
