capitalization - Should it be "Happy Birthday!" or "Happy birthday!" when used as a two word sentence?


I've always simply written it "Happy birthday!" but my wife recently said that "Birthday" should be capitalized as well. What's grammatically correct?



Answer




... my wife recently said that "Birthday" should be capitalized as well.



In your case, the correct answer is, "Whatever your wife says."


For the rest of us, it seems to be the convention that we capitalize the name of the event in standard phrases of felicitation. E.g.



Happy Birthday


Happy Anniversary


Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year



This is an exception to the normal rules of capitalization.


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