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Kerth
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Kerth
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Just curious, when you actually refer to it as a "French kiss" do you capitalize "French" or is it "french kiss"? I had it capitalized but it just looks weird. After all, "french fries" isn't capitalized, is it? I'm leaning towards *not* capitalizing it, but I just wanted to check.  It's too fun of a conversation between our heroes to want to ditch the phrase entirely. ETA: And while I'm asking questions - just how much did Superman go for in the bachelor auction? Wasn't it $50,000?
Lois: You know, I have a funny feeling that you didn't tell me your biggest secret.
Clark: Well, just to put your little mind at ease, Lois, you're right.
Ides of Metropolis
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Boards Chief Administrator Pulitzer
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I'd lean towards not capitalizing it, too. As for the bidding... Lex went for $10,000. And Superman, indeed, went for $50,000.  Or so it says in the script. Sara (who has about an hour to finish her paper and shouldn't be checking the boards...)
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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Not that my opinion counts much, but I would capitalize it. It's an established term, describing a certain kiss.
By the way, my not really trustworthy dictionary capitalizes it.
It's never too dark to be cool. 
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Beat Reporter
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Beat Reporter
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Dictionary.com and Wikipedia.org both capitalizes "French" in fries as well as kiss.
I do know you, and I know you wouldn't lie... at least to me...most of the time...
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Boards Chief Administrator Emeritus Nobel Peace Prize Winner
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I think it's one of those things that technically should be capitalised, but fashion dictates is either/or and you find both versions being widely used, depending on the author. If I was GEing it for the Archive, I'd probably not worry too much if there was a capital or not, accepting either and going by what the author's choice was. LabRat 
Athos: If you'd told us what you were doing, we might have been able to plan this properly.
Aramis: Yes, sorry.
Athos: No, no, by all means, let's keep things suicidal.
The Musketeers
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Beat Reporter
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Beat Reporter
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Sue asked: Just curious, when you actually refer to it as a "French kiss" do you capitalize "French" or is it "french kiss"? I had it capitalized but it just looks weird. After all, "french fries" isn't capitalized, is it? Capital 'F' for me... and, yes, the first 'f' in French fries is capitalised, too. (Okay, I'm sad, but I double-checked with the dictionary.) I find it odd that you think 'French kiss' looks weird because, for me, the weird looking one is 'french kiss'.  Mind you, this isn't something that I would lose sleep over. Chris
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Kerth
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Kerth
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I think my inclination to not capitalize is because when I use it as a verb ("And then he frenched me...") it seems weird to have it capitalized. Even though "Google" is a proper noun, we still don't capitalize "googling", do we?
Lois: You know, I have a funny feeling that you didn't tell me your biggest secret.
Clark: Well, just to put your little mind at ease, Lois, you're right.
Ides of Metropolis
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Beat Reporter
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Beat Reporter
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There is a verb 'to french'? Seriously?
Wow.
Never knew that.
I'm not even going to ask what that means! (Though I suspect I can guess. I'm also assuming that it's slang. Is that right?)
Chris
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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Yes, there is a verb. The actual verb is/was "to french kiss," but the "kiss" was dropped as understood. Technically then, the verb should probably also be capitalized.
It seems strange to me, though, to have to capitalize an adjective. French fries. Chinese food. American cheese. Jamaican jerk chicken. Japanese fighting fish. Capitalized here because they're at the beginning of their respective sentence fragments, but it seems wrong to me, mid-sentence. It's an adjective related to a proper name, not the name itself.
Paul
When in doubt, think about penguins. It probably won't help, but at least it'll be fun.
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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Interestingly enough (at least to me), the term 'French kiss' today refers to a kiss with a whole lot of tongue involved. And 'to French' someone is to kiss with lots of tongue.
But the term originally came to the US from Europe right after the Doughboys returned home from World War I. At that time, it referred to a Clintonian sexual activity in which one participant would stimulate the other partner's - er, response - in an oral fashion. This was an activity which was (as far as I am aware) largely unknown in polite US society at the time, even between married couples.
(I sure hope that's circumspect enough! If not, blame the History Channel!)
Life isn't a support system for writing. It's the other way around.
- Stephen King, from On Writing
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Kerth
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Kerth
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LOL! Ah, Terry, you had me at "Clintonian". <g> I never knew it was that dirty of a phrase. How I love the History Channel, but I somehow missed that documentary. Thanks also to Paul for giving me a leg to stand on when I don't capitalize it. 
Lois: You know, I have a funny feeling that you didn't tell me your biggest secret.
Clark: Well, just to put your little mind at ease, Lois, you're right.
Ides of Metropolis
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It seems strange to me, though, to have to capitalize an adjective. French fries. Chinese food. American cheese. Jamaican jerk chicken. Japanese fighting fish. Isn't that interesting? Whereas, I wouldn't really notice whether French fries had a capital or not, it would look very weird to me to see chinese food or japanese fighting fish or no capital on any of your other examples, Paul. How odd. Wonder what my brain has against the French? And I've just noticed that the in-built spellchecker for Firefox definitely likes capitals on all of these, including French fries and marks them as wrong without one. I may have to rethink this one. LabRat
Athos: If you'd told us what you were doing, we might have been able to plan this properly.
Aramis: Yes, sorry.
Athos: No, no, by all means, let's keep things suicidal.
The Musketeers
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Merriwether
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Merriwether
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I vote for both, capitalizing the F's as a friend does. fFrench fFries. This is the only letter he does this with.
"You need me. You wouldn't be much of a hero without a villain. And you do love being the hero, don't you. The cheering children, the swooning women, you love it so much, it's made you my most reliable accomplice." -- Lex Luthor to Superman, Question Authority, Justice League Unlimited
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Merriwether
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Alternate. That way you know you're half right.
I think, therefore, I get bananas.
When in doubt, think about time travel conundrums. You'll confuse yourself so you can forget what you were in doubt about.
What's the difference between ignorance, apathy, and ambivalence?
I don't know and I don't care one way or the other.
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Top Banana
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I didn't think you have to capitalize adjectives in English, but I tried with my Word program with Thesaurus set on English(US) and English (United Kingdom) and it makes me capitalize adjectives in phrases as "I love Italian style" or "I'm eating Japanese food" or "I love English writers", and it tells me that in this situation adjectives are always capitalized; in Italian I'd say "Io amo lo stile italiano", "Sto mangiando cibo cinese", "Amo gli scrittori inglesi". Now I'm curious, tomorrow I'll try to find my old English Grammar Book, I want to know what it says! Simona
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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What about other adjectives derived from proper names? Which of the following would you capitalize?
Elizabethan furniture
Napoleonic tendencies
Oedipal complex
Freudian slip
Pavlovian response
Platonic love
Socratic method
Faustian bargain
Shakespearian tradgedy
Or how about city or state adjectives, such as "Bostonian"? (Firefox says that should be capitalized, too.)
"Jewish mothers" is supposed to be capitalized.
I think "Sicilian pizza" is, too.
Is that the rule for any proper name?
When in doubt, think about penguins. It probably won't help, but at least it'll be fun.
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Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
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You know... I'm just about certain the fries are Belgian. And as for the kissing, I'm really not sure the French invented that. I'd wager even cavemen did it. *lol* I would go with "fries" and "to kiss," personally. <g> Interestingly (?) you'll find that while something like "English muffins" when translated to French will still have "English" ("anglais") in its name, neither "French Kiss" nor "French Fries" translate into expressions with the word "français" in it. Yeah, OK, it's probably only amusing to someone like me.
Superman: Why is it that good villains never die?
Batman: Clark, what the hell are good villains?
=> Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
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Kerth
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Kerth
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Originally posted by HatMan:
What about other adjectives derived from proper names? Which of the following would you capitalize?
Elizabethan furniture
Napoleonic tendencies
Oedipal complex
Freudian slip
Pavlovian response
Platonic love
Socratic method
Faustian bargain
Shakespearian tradgedy
Or how about city or state adjectives, such as "Bostonian"? (Firefox says that should be capitalized, too.)
"Jewish mothers" is supposed to be capitalized.
I think "Sicilian pizza" is, too.
Is that the rule for any proper name? Yes, basically, although there are some exceptions where centuries of usage has divorced the word from its original meaning. The best example I can think of is August (the month) versus august (the adjective, as in "our august speaker"); the root is, of course, the emperor Augustus, but the word can be used with no connection to him whatever, so it has gradually lost its capitalization. In all of the examples you give the capitalized word still refers to a specific person, place, etc. rather than a general class of things, so it stays capitalized.
Marcus L. Rowland
Forgotten Futures, The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game
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Yep, Terry, that's what I thought it meant.
I didn't know about the Clintonian bits, though.
Chris
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Pulitzer
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Wonder what my brain has against the French? It's a British brain, that's what. Incidentally, I'd write "French kiss", but just on the reasoning that it looks correct to me. See ya, AnnaBtG.
What we've got here is failure to communicate...
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