Proper grammatical construction. Someone HELP!!

March22Collector

I have an ongoing argument with our current consultant. I created a memo for distribution, and it included the line "Please return your form to the human resources office......" He told me that human resources, in this context, should be capitalized. I told him he was incorrect. Who is right? And, when is it proper to capitalize human resources, and when is it not? Thanks :-)

atrimble

We capitalize the names of all our departments, unless the name is being used in a referential or descriptive sense. Our agency doesn't have a department named Human Resources, so I have to find another example to work from (I'm in "Finance" or the "Finance Department"). If I refer to the employees of the Maintenance Department, they're "Maintenance Staff." However, if I refer indirectly to the procedures and resources (including human) that are used to do the upkeep of our buildings, it's "maintenance."

Personally, I would leave your usage un-capitalized because in your context, "human resources" is a descriptor (adjective) of an office, not the proper name (noun) of the department. If you capitalize HR in your example, I'd suggest capitalizing Office, also, because it sounds like the consultant wants to make that location an official place name. Or you could completely drop the word "office" so that the meaning of the sentence changes to indicate the return of the form to anyone in the department of Human Resources, regardless of location.

Anyone have Schoolhouse Rock playing in the back of their mind, now? ("Molly, Molly, get your adverbs here," or "Aaaaa noun is a person, place, or thing.")

TN HR

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-22-05 AT 09:35AM (CST)[/font][br][br]The real take-away here is that you've got a consultant wrapped around the axle over capitalizing HuMaN rEsOurCes? Give me a break! Fire him and rap your knucles as punishment for allowing yourself to get sucked into his minutia.

Makes me wish I had your time on my hands or that I was consulting. I have a huge lead for him on some more business. I know of a place in MS where he could turn grammar consulting into a perpetual project!

Gene

March22Collector

Believe me, you don't want my time on your hands. A 10 minute job takes approximately one-week with the corrections and additions/deletions to memos and policies over the smallest of details. Of course that's pretty obvious when you read the context of my initial post. What makes it tough is with all the time spent on these ridiculous situations, I've got little time to spend on the important issues of HR. Micro-Management, what a great concept! Thanks for the reply :-)

March22Collector

Thanks, that's exactly what I tried to explain! I appreciate the post :-)

TN HR

I am feeling some pain coming across. Seriously, if this individual is making life so hard for you try to work on ridding the problem or pulling-up stakes. I thought I had it bad sometimes. Man-o-man! Hang in there!

HRCalico

Abby, was your mom an English teacher? :>) Great explanation! As for me, I just use the abbreviation HR and call it good.

atrimble

She might as well have been... HER mother was a one-room schoolhouse teacher, and everyone in my family insisted on proper pronunciation and usage from the earliest age, including spelling, grammar and punctuation. I, on the other hand, WAS an English major, but I never finished the degree, so the cross-department language arguments we have here are usually settled by the lady who does have a degree in English, who was also an English teacher. I know she's sometimes wrong, but I feel compelled to defer to her "expertise."

Hmmm, in review, I know I need to modify that paragraph... (heeheehee).

LivindonSouth

I capitalize departments, and out of courtesy, offices as well. Human Resources, Maintenance, Accounting, Engineering, Permit Office. And for the sake of consistent recognition of important functional areas, I would even capitalize if I were to say, "Recruitment of personnel is actually a Human Resources function at this company." In an English class, however, that last capitalization would not be correct. But we ain't in a English class.

I'm really surprised the consultant did not advise you to drop the 's' on Resources. Many do that too.