Okay, so it's about time we laid to rest the matter of what terms are and are not capitalised. There's only one way to do this, short of asking Hussie himself, and that's to seek out pretty much every instance of each term and work out what best to use based on a combination of both frequency and recency, as well as taking into account the source, e.g. in-comic text generally trumps Hussie's tumblr, and characters' text quirks should be borne in mind -- Sorceror Nobody, 22:57, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
Scratch[]
N.B. Instances of mundane word usage don't count, e.g. "“SCRATCH THE MESA”"
literally means scoring a scratch across the Beat Mesa with the Quills of Echidna, and thus is not an example of the specific term for the reset mechanism.
| Collasped due to size | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speaker | Form(s) | Page(s) | Count | Reliability |
| Aradia | “a scratch the scratch” |
|
3 | None – Aradia's quirk enforces lowercase. |
| John | “the scratch” | |
1 | Minimal – John usually lacks capitalisation. |
| Vriska | “the scratch” | |
1 | Moderate – Vriska uses normal capitalisation. |
| Dave | “the scratch” | |
1 | Minimal – Dave usually lacks capitalisation. |
| Jade | “the scratch” | |
1 | Minimal – Jade usually lacks capitalisation. |
| Narrative | “a scratch the scratch pre-scratch” |
|
4 | Maximal – it's Hussie speaking in-comic. |
| Karkat | “THE SCRATCH” | |
1 | None – Karkat's quirk enforces uppercase. |
| Rose | “the scratch” | |
1 | Moderate – Rose uses normal capitalisation. |
| Scratch | “the Scratch” | |
14 | Minimal – while he uses normal capitalisation ordinarily, his reason for capitalising it is probably due to being a smug tool. |
| Rose | “the Scratch” | |
7 | Moderate – though she may merely be imitating Scratch, as she has a precedent for mimicking the person she's talking to.
|
| Scratch | “The Scratch” | |
4 | Minimal – smug tool. So smug that he's also capitalising "The". |
| Karkat | “THE SCRATCH” | |
8 | None – quirk. |
| John | “the scratch” | |
2 | Minimal – "quirk". |
| Nepeta | “the scratch” | |
1 | None – Nepeta's quirk enforces lowercase. |
| Jaspers | “the scratch” | |
1 | None – Jaspersprite's "quirk" enforces lowercase. |
| Scratch | “scratched the scratch” |
|
2 | Unknown – this is highly unusual from Doc Scratch. |
| Karkat | “THE SCRATCH” | |
1 | None – quirk. |
| John | “the scratch scratch'd” |
|
3 | Minimal – "quirk". |
| Dave | “the scratch scratch” |
|
2 | Minimal – "quirk". |
| Rose | “scratched a scratch post-scratch” |
|
3 | Moderate – "quirk". |
| Aranea | “scratch the scratch” |
|
2 | Moderate – Aranea uses normal capitalisation. |
| Aranea | “scratched post-scratch” |
|
5 | Moderate – quirk. |
| Meenah | “scratch” | |
1 | None – Meenah's quirk enforces lowercase. |
| Narrative | “post-scratch” | |
1 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Kankri | “p9st-scratch” | |
3 | Moderate – Kankri uses normal capitalisation. |
| Porrim | “the scratch po+st-scratch” |
|
3 | Moderate – Porrim uses normal capitalisation. |
| Meulin | “PRE-SCRATCH SCRATCH-POST” |
|
2 | None – Meulin's quirk enforces uppercase. |
| Horuss | “post-scratch” | |
1 | Moderate – Horuss uses normal capitalisation. |
| Aranea | “the Scratch” | |
2 | Unknown – this is unusual from Aranea. |
| tumblr | the scratch scratched post-scratch post scratch pre scratch |
(1)(2)(3) (4)(5)(6) (7) |
12 | Uncertain – tumblr is not in-comic. Note that the third link mixes capitalisations (see next row of table). |
| tumblr | the Scratch | (3) | 2 | Uncertain – tumblr is not in-comic. |
| tumblr | SCRATCHED | (8) | 1 | Minimal – clearly all-caps for emphasis only. Uncertain – tumblr is not in-comic. |
All instances of the narrative using the term have it lowercase. All characters known to use standard capitalisation, with the smug exception of Doc Scratch, have it lowercase apart from Rose and Aranea, who are oddly inconsistent.
Verdict? It's clearly meant to be lowercase -- Sorceror Nobody, 22:57, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
Yeah seems like the comic uses "the scratch" as a standard. Makes no sense to me, because it's a name and "the Tumor" is usually capitalised which is a very similar case of turning a normal word into a name for a specific thing. But yeah, can't ignore the actual comic, so "the scratch" it is. bitterLime 23:10, February 4, 2013 (UTC)
Medium[]
Note that this is just going off the comic; I haven't checked the tumblr posts.
| Collasped due to size | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speaker | Form(s) | Page(s) | Count | Reliability |
| Nanna | “The Medium” | |
2 | Minimal – Nanna's sprite "quirk" underlines and capitalizes terms. |
| John | “the medium” | |
1 | Minimal – John usually lacks capitalisation. |
| Nanna | “The Medium” | |
1 | Minimal – "quirk". |
| John | “the medium” | |
1 | Minimal – "quirk". |
| Dave | “the medium” | |
1* | Minimal – Dave usually lacks capitalisation. |
| Karkat | “THE MEDIUM” | |
2 | None – Karkat's quirk enforces uppercase. |
| Narrative | “the Medium” “pre-Medium” |
|
19 | Maximal – it's Hussie speaking in-comic. |
| Narrative | “the medium” | |
1 | Unknown – anomalous exception on the same page as the above row. |
| Karkat | “THE MEDIUM” | |
1 | None – quirk. |
| Narrative | “the medium” | |
5 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Narrative | “the Medium” | |
9 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Dave | “the medium” | |
1 | Minimal – "quirk". |
| Narrative | “the medium” | |
2 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Jade | “the medium” | |
3 | Minimal – "quirk". |
| Caliborn | “THE MEDIuM” | |
1 | None – quirk. |
| Narrative | “the Medium” | |
1 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Hussie | “the Medium” | |
1 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| tumblr | the Medium | (1) | 1 | Uncertain – tumblr is not in-comic. |
Frustratingly, literally no character has ever actually said the word in question without using some kind of quirk, and even Hussie isn't consistent with the way he presents it. That being said, I'm counting 30 instances where Hussie uses "the Medium" and 8 instances where he uses "the medium". As it is the most frequently and most recently used version of the term, I'm leaning towards "the Medium" as being the correct style. lp2277 | Talk 00:14, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
- Added tumblr instances. Or rather, instance, singular. And seconded -- Sorceror Nobody, 00:48, February 5, 2013 (UTC)
The Felt[]
Nobody is arguing that "Felt" isn't capitalised, rather, due to the template we use, and common usage in a sentence it is commonly said as "The Felt" when it might actually be "the Felt".
| Collasped due to size | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speaker | Form(s) | Page(s) | Count | Reliability |
| B1 MSPA/ Narrative |
the Felt | (screen shot) |
1 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Narrative | THE FELT | |
1 | None - narrator quirk for expressing emphasis. |
| Narrative | the Felt | |
2 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Narrative | The Felt | |
2 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Narrative | The Felt | |
1 | Maximal – Hussie. |
So it is 3 for "the Felt" and 3 for "The Felt", though I find it interesting that, even when excusing that one time he was using the white colour text quirk, that most of the time he forgot to colour the name green. Really we could go any way with this I guess, but really I am fairly sure proper grammar says that "the" should not be capitalised. - The Light6 (talk) 01:38, April 26, 2013 (UTC)
- Further to this, we quite
often have cases of just "Felt", implying that the name really is primarily "Felt" and the "the" is an article rather than part of the name, which in turn would support noncapitalisation. - Finally, presumably a mistake, "felt" occurs here -- Sorceror Nobody, 17:52, June 12, 2013 (UTC)
Sprite[]
Any consensus on this? Aepokk Venset 06:46, November 24, 2013 (UTC)
- In commands, "sprite" is referred to as not capitalized. Wow that was kinda ungraceful. Hussie, in the first-year recap of HS constantly leaves the whole word lowercased when appropriate and does so in recap two as well. It's also here and here, and in every one of those Hussie/Caliborn convos. Narrative-wise, it's always left without capitalization. --Cardboardboxes (talk) 08:06, November 24, 2013 (UTC)
- Also doing another search through for use of the word by people who have the "quirk" of normal/correct grammar (or at least correct use of upper and lowercase) shows Vriska, Dirk, Aranea, and ARquisprite all have it lowercase. - The Light6 (talk) 08:35, November 24, 2013 (UTC)
- Also doing another search through for use of the word by people who have the "quirk" of normal/correct grammar (or at least correct use of upper and lowercase) shows Vriska
- While "sprite" is always lower case; Kernelsprite, at least initially is capitalised, it changes in Act 4 to being lowercase. Sprite being lowercase makes sense in the same vein that human, troll, dog, cat, etc are lowercase. Kernelsprite being uppercase also makes sense as while being a sprite (class of being) it is also an individual entity with that being its name, so it being changed to lowercase is odd. - The Light6 (talk) 09:51, June 8, 2014 (UTC)
(The) Veil[]
| Collasped due to size | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speaker | Form(s) | Page(s) | Count | Reliability |
| Karkat | THE VEIL | |
7 | None – Karkat's quirk enforces uppercase. |
| John | the veil | |
2 | Minimal – John usually lacks capitalisation. |
| Narrative | (The) Veil | |
3 (two without "The", one with "The") | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Narrative | the veil | |
9 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Narrative | the Veil | |
1 | Maximal – Hussie. |
| Aradia | a veil | |
1 | None – Aradia's quirk enforces lowercase. |
| Aradia | the veil | |
1 | None – Aradia's quirk enforces lowercase. |
| Kanaya | The Veil | |
4 | None – Kanaya's quirk enforces uppercase. |
| Scratch | the veil | |
1 | Maximal – Standard capitalisation and omniscience. |
It seems there are very few examples to go on, and even fewer without a quirk. Out of the Narrator and Scratch ones though "the veil" stands out as a clear winner with 10 uses compared to the 4 uses between the two alternatives. Of the four that use "Veil" three of them are confined to a single page and the remaining 1 use appears as an outlier being basically centred between the two halves of the use of "the veil".
Before the veil is actually named as such it is simply described as "an impenetrable veil of darkness", which seems to back up the idea "the veil" is simply a descriptor as opposed to a proper name; much like the asteroid belt in real life. - The Light6 (talk) 09:51, June 8, 2014 (UTC)