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How would you capitalize sister-in-law as a form of address?

English Language & Usage Asked by Mimishijie on July 26, 2021

I’m editing a chapter of a novel translated from Chinese, where kinship terms are often used as a form of address replacing a name. In this case, the speaker is referring to another woman as "sister-in-law". I was wondering if that would be capitalized as "Sister-in-Law", "Sister-In-Law", or "Sister-in-law"?

3 Answers

I'm not aware of any capitalization of familial names in English (aside from when used at a beginning of the sentence of course). Positions of high honor, like the president of a country of 300+ million people are capitalized, but unless you're going for hyperbole, stay lower-case for familial names.

Answered by FeliniusRex on July 26, 2021

Pertaining to the number of books I have read, I have not seen the familial terms being written in title case or camel case or capital case for the matter of fact. Though it is a noun, it is not capitalized unless for being used in specific cases, like writing the word for calligraphy purposes.

Military resistance was organized by Sidonius’s brother-in-law, Ecdicius, son of the emperor Avitus.

Hope this helps.

Answered by Dhanishtha Ghosh on July 26, 2021

When, say, "brother" is used as a term of address (Please help me, brother!) it's not normally capitalised at all.

But based on Commander-in-Chief, I suggest you go for the "title case" version Sister-in-Law (which unlike "CamelCase" doesn't capitalise "noise words" such as prepositions). It's really the writer's choice though (or the choice of his favoured Style Guide).


For what it's worth, here's an NGram usage chart showing how usage has shifted significantly over the decades, as regards capitalising "Mother" when it's being used as a proper noun...

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Answered by FumbleFingers on July 26, 2021

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