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Court or court?

P1mP

Which one would it be if you were to include that word in a sentence :confused:

im assuming its court..and also..if it was Criminal Court..or criminal court..and..Crown Court..or crown court..
lol

Reply 1

Crazy Mongoose

If you write North Yorkshire County Council, you should write North Yorkshire County Court(s).

Edit; perhaps that needs some clarification. If the word 'court' is part of a title, i.e. X Crown Court, it is capitalised, just as you would capitalise 'council' above. If however, you were talking about 'the crown court system', or in other uses, i.e. "i'll see you in court", "The courthouse was bright red", or "you are in contempt of court", it is not capitalised.

To sum up;

Generic- 'court'
Specified (i.e. title)- Court

Reply 2

alocin

Off a judgement on the Parliament Stationary Office website:

"...he enjoys immunity from the jurisdiction of the Courts of the United Kingdom under section 14 of the 1978 Act..." and "The Court accepted that because the defendant was in New York..."

Looks like they favour "C" rather than "c" as well!

Edit: Yeah Crazy Mongoose, if it was courtroom or something then it'd be little c.

Reply 3

P1mP

Great..im even more confused now lol..thanks for your help thou :wink:

Reply 4

Crazy Mongoose

Then we have failed. However, i believe i have the answer, with the aid of the OED;

court

• noun 1 (also court of law) a body of people before whom judicial cases are heard. 2 the place where such a body meets.

Use under definition 1 demands a capital letter, as you are talking about the insitution. Use under definition 2 does not.

The only exception to this rule is when the word 'court' is used as part of a larger, formal title, i.e. York Crown Court or the Central Criminal Court.

Note that in the exception above, because they are also part of the title, the words 'crown' and 'criminal' are capitalised, wheras (as far as i know) they would not be under the rule of definition 1 i outlined above; i.e. "it is in the judgement of this criminal Court".

Reply 5

tommorris

"I am going to court tommorow. It is the High Court, where I will sit in court. I hope that the Court finds in my favour. And I really hope that I don't get caught! Because I'm short!"

That illustrates the usage, I believe.