Okay, so, I was writing this article the other day, and I came across a word that I just wasn’t sure how to capitalize: “tarot.” It got me thinking, “Is tarot capitalized?” I mean, it’s not a proper noun like a name or a place, but it’s also not just a regular common noun. It felt like it was in some kind of gray area. I wasn’t about to just guess, I needed to know for sure.
So, I did what any normal person would do. I started digging. First, I pulled out my trusty style guides. I flipped through the pages of the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook, hoping one of them would have a clear answer. I looked under nouns, proper nouns, capitalization rules… you name it, I checked it. I spent a good chunk of time on this, but it felt like neither of them directly addressed whether “tarot” should be capitalized. I did find that they did address that the names of the cards are capitalized, like the Hanged Man and the Tower, etc.
Next, I decided to hit up the internet. I opened my browser and started searching. I looked at websites for tarot readers, online dictionaries, and even some language forums. I saw it both ways! Some people capitalized it, others didn’t. It was like a mixed bag, and that wasn’t helping me at all. I even found a few articles that talked about the history of tarot, but they didn’t really touch on the capitalization thing. It was really frustrating not finding a straight answer, and I just wanted this to be right in my article.
After a while, I decided to try a different approach. I started looking at how “tarot” was used in published books, you know, like novels and non-fiction stuff. I figured that books go through a lot of editing and proofreading, so they’d probably have it right. I checked out some books from my own bookshelf, and I even went to the library to look at a few more. It took some time to really notice the pattern since I don’t read much about tarot in the first place.
And guess what? It seemed like most of the time, “tarot” was not capitalized in books. I saw it used in sentences like, “She learned how to read tarot cards,” or “He was interested in the history of tarot.” It made a lot of sense to me when I saw it that way. That is when I really started to understand and see the pattern.
So, here’s what I’ve concluded after all this digging: Generally, “tarot” is not capitalized when it’s used as a common noun. It’s kind of like the word “yoga” or “meditation.” You wouldn’t capitalize those, right? It made sense after thinking of those similar words. However, if “tarot” is part of a title, like the title of a book or a specific deck name, then yeah, you capitalize it, just like any other important word in a title. Tarot is also capitalized when it starts a sentence.
- General rule: Don’t capitalize “tarot.”
- Exceptions:
- Titles of books, decks, etc.
- At the beginning of a sentence.
This whole thing took up more time than I expected, but hey, at least I learned something new, and you did too! I hope this helps some of you out there who might be wondering the same thing.
