I've recently come across a dilemma of whether to capitalize a plural noun, given that it's described by a proper adjective (like a place) and a common adjective (a descriptive adjective).
Example-
…big and Saharan deserts
Or
…big and Saharan Deserts
In both of these cases, we're talking about multiple deserts, and one is big, and the other Saharan. Does desert get capitalized? Would the order of the adjectives matter?
I know it's not a great example (I'm not talking specifically about the Saharan Desert, but any proper adjective would do), but can anyone clarify? I've never learned about this specific topic (with one proper and one descriptive adjective). Also, if a question like this exists, please kindly direct me to it! Thanks!
Best Answer
You'll find both initial caps and initial lower-case:
From Handbook of Landscape Archaeology, B David and J Thomas (eds),
From Great Walls and Linear Barriers by P Spring,
I haven't been able to find a conjunction of Saharan with anything but another adjectival form of a place name, but the preponderance of the Ngram viewer examples seems to be lower-case deserts. The probable reason is the the Sahara Desert is a proper name, but Saharan deserts isn't. Rather it's a descriptive term for the various so-called xeric subregions of the Sahara Desert, which have their own proper names, e.g., the Grand Ergs of Algeria.
This discussion illustrates the fact that the adjectival form of a proper noun keeps its properness (and thus its initial cap) for itself, but also that the properness does not extend to phrases that are proper with the noun form. Thus we learn from wikipedia that
But we would say that
In the former case Band is part of the name and so is capitalized. In the latter case, band is not part of the name and so is lower-case, unaffected by Mississippian, which simply acts as an adjective no different from its companion, mound-building.