Since Dennis brought the misuse of "had", though I'd bring
something up I've wondered about.

I write for the oregonian on natural history (very) occasionally,
as well as other places, and I can never decide how to
present bird names: capitalized or not.

I.E. "Tundra Swan" or "tundra swan". Obviously birds which include
proper nouns should have that capitalized (i.e. "Cooper's Hawk"
or "Cooper's hawk", but never "cooper's hawk" or god forbid
"coopers hawk"!).

Anyway, I've seen many, many examples of writing using both
styles, and have had editors accept both, so I'm convinced
it's really a style, not "proper usage" issue. I prefer
the non-capitalized style myself, I suspect partially
because I started my career as a software hacker back in
the days when computer terminals ONLY HAD CAPS AND I FOUND
IT REALLY TIRESOME, as I'm sure that short example demonstrates.

Of course, in the not-so-distant past capitalization of many
common nouns was accepted usuage, so to my eyes the constant
capitalization of bird names looks just a bit archaic.

What do you folks think?

Irene - you're the writer/professor here, you gotta comment.
Especially after scolding me over using the word "thermaling"!

-Don Baccus-