In English, people tend to capitalize a person’s title but not the job they do every day. When people give out name cards to each other at business meetings or social events, usually there is a job title next to the name. This way you know what role the person plays in the organization. This title would be capitalized. It’s considered a sort of second name for the person. For example:
Jane Smith
Director of Human Resources
Acme, Inc.
You could also expect to see a job capitalized if the word appears before a person’s name, in a sentence such as: “At yesterday’s seminar, Director of Human Resources Jane Smith gave a presentation about interviewing strategies.”
In contrast, when we speak about jobs in general, we generally do not capitalize the words. So, for example, you can speak about accountants, receptionists, company vice presidents and so on without using upper case letters. Even in the example above, if you put Jane Smith’s title after her name, then you do not need to capitalize the job – as in this example: “At yesterday’s seminar, Jane Smith, the human resources director, gave a presentation about interviewing strategies.
The main thing to remember is that jobs are capitalized when they act more like a name than a general word for a job category. You can see this in the following examples:
I want to see Doctor Harris.
You really should see a doctor.
Did you see Governor Thomas on the news?
She voted for Thomas, the state’s governor.
He just spoke to the Prime Minister.
The president lives in the White House.
Find a newspaper in English in print or online, and take a look at some of the front page news stories, especially ones related to business. You will see several examples of job titles that are capitalized and job types that are not. As always, finding real world examples will help you see the patterns and help you make decisions for yourself in no time at all.
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Tags: Kursus Bahasa Inggris
