capitalization - Should “Hell” be capitalized?


I am of the belief that Hell should be capitalized because real or not, it is the name of a place, and thus a proper noun. It should be capitalized correct?


I have seen it written without capitalization plenty of times, but I suspect that most of those were just due to laziness or illiteracy (it tends to be written with a lower-case ‘h’ mostly on the Internet–sigh).


Other uses, including expletives seem to use it as a place name as well:





  • What [in] the Hell‽




  • Go to Hell!





Google gives mixed results and checking the WikiPedia entry for Hell to get a proper definition does indicate that it is a location, but even on that same page, there are plenty of instances with a lower-case ‘h’.


Is there a situation in which it would not be capitalized? What about uses as an adjective:



that job was Hell?




Answer



"Hell" is capitalized when it is used as a proper noun. That is, you capitalize it when you are referring to it as a specific place. However, it can be perfectly legitimate to leave it uncapitalized if you are not referring to a specific place.


"That job was hell" does not refer to a specific location, but rather a nebulous concept of torture. Thus, it is not capitalized in this sentence.


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