Should 'tiger' be capitalized?

No, the word 'tiger' should not be capitalised as it is not a proper noun (as shown in the title to this short post). A proper noun is a noun that serves as the name for a SPECIFIC place, person, or thing. 

An example would be the word 'Bengal' which is an historic region in the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal.

Interestingly, the most common species of tiger is written 'Bengal tiger', with the first half capitalized as it is a distinct place in Asia and the second half not capitalised as the word 'tiger' refers generically to the species of wild cat called a tiger.

You often see this 'hybrid' labelling of the wild cat species. For example, the Andean mountain cat or the Chinese desert cat or the now extinct Caspian tiger.

To distinguish them from common nouns, proper nouns are always capitalised in English. Common nouns are words for types of things, people, and places, such as 'dog', 'professor', 'city', and 'tiger'.

Finally, there is a certain amount of flexibility in this and English grammar has evolved and continues to do so. 

For example, Dr Desmond Morris in his book Cat World would write 'Caspian Tiger' or 'Bengal Tiger' with a capital 'T'. That's because he was capitalising the entire name which was normal in 1996 when the book was published. 

It sort of looks better if we are honest but it is grammatically incorrect nowadays.

Should 'jaguar' be capitalized?

No, the word "jaguar" should not be capitalized as the word is not a proper noun. It's interesting because I write these articles using speech-to-text software called Dragon Dictate. 

Dragon Dictate capitalises the word 'jaguar' and I don't understand why. It appears to be an error in the software or it is because these words are often used in a human context such as naming a sports team e.g. "the Jaguars are playing the Bobcats tomorrow". Sports teams often adopt the name of a wild cat species for their name. Under these circumstances 'jaguar' is capitalised as it refers to a proper noun: the name of a sports team.

The software also capitalises the words 'tiger' and 'lion'. But this is incorrect, strictly speaking.

Black jaguar - melanistic jaguar. Photo: The Big Cat Sanctuary from a video by them.

RELATED: Should 'veterinarian' be capitalised?

Although some authors incorrectly still capitalise tiger and jaguar. Often you will see it in old books when grammatical conventions were different. 

With respect to tigers, if you name the region then that name is capitalised such as "Siberian tiger".

An example of a sentence with the word jaguar in it would be: "The jaguar at London Zoo is beautiful".

It's important to note, though, that grammar evolves. Things change over time. The current policy is not the capitalise the names of the big cats. However, you will still see these names capitalised. It's not a big error.

The reason, by the way, is that they are not proper nouns but common nouns. You only capitalise proper nouns such as the name of a place. Common nouns refers to a generic person, place or thing within a group.

Should 'leopard' be capitalized?

No, the word "leopard" should not be capitalised because it is a common noun but there are some exceptions which I discuss below when the word becames part of an individual cat's name. 

None of the wild cat species should be capitalised including the lion and tiger. It's interesting, however, that you still see the names of wild cat species sometimes capitalised. 

I believe that there was a convention perhaps a hundred years ago when these nouns were capitalized. Grammar, after all, is an artificial convention. It is not an absolute set of rules set in stone. 

Humans decide what is and what isn't acceptable in terms of grammar and the current thinking is that the word "leopard" should not be capitalised and neither should any other name of the wild cat species. 

Sometimes, however, you will see a lion that has been named because they are famous i.e. 'Cecil the Lion'. Clearly, the whole name should be capitalised as all names are. The whole name is 'Cecil the Lion'. The intervening 'the' should stay in lowercase.

Sometimes man-eating leopards have been named such as the the Leopard of Rudraprayag; a leopard reputed to have killed over 125 people. It was eventually killed by hunter and author Jim Corbett who has a tiger reserve named after him in the north of India.

The cat has been given a name and the full name is as stated. In this case the word 'leopard' is capitalized as it is part of a proper name (proper noun). Once again the intervening 'of' is in lowercase.

Amur leopard. Photo in the public domain.

And when there is a prefix which tells you where the cat is from, the pre-fix should be capitalized as is the case for: Amur leopard and Siberian tiger for instance.

Should veterinarian be capitalized?

No, neither the word "veterinarian" nor the shortened version, "vet" should be capitalized (capitalised) in modern English. By "capitalized" I mean the first letter of the word is in upper case. The first letter of words should be capitalized under certain rules. These rules have evolved over the years. English has become much less formal.  Accordingly, the rule on capitalizing the first letter has become less demanding.

Animal doctor (veterinarian) with young cat in vet clinic. Photo: Pixabay.

Places and geographic terms are started with an upper case letter. "New York" is one example. "London" is another and "North America" is a typical example.

The word "veterinarian" describes a profession, no more. You wouldn't call a train driver a "Train Driver", would you? The fact that a veterinarian has a better status (some would say) in society does not make any difference.

Two last points. The word "vet" can also mean a person who has retired from the armed forces (short for "veteran"). It is better therefore to spell out the entire word on the internet so that Google can understand its meaning.

The word "internet" can be spelled with a capitalized first letter - "Internet". But modern English, particularly internet English favours ease and speed hence lower case.

Here is an example in a sentence. "My veterinarian is very good with cats. His veterinary practice is just down the road".

Sometimes people refer to veterinarians as "animal doctors". Veterinarians themselves like to be referred to as doctors because they feel that they have the same status as doctors.



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