Pokemon grammar

HI all! I wish to do some Research on how fellow writers deal with Pokemon names and terms and whatnot. Let's open the floor on how you do it, or any opinions you have on the following:

- To capitalise, or not to capitalise? I.e. do you say Eevee or eevee? What about items (Potion/potion, etc.)?
- Grass-type, or Grass type?
- Do you pay attention to more niche things, such as form/formes?
- Do you put in the effort to have that accented é in Pokémon? Or is it too much of a bother?

Feel free to add more!

When I did a ton of writing a few years back...
- I always capitalized the species name and the items. It's technically not grammatically correct, but species names aren't a part of everyday diction the same way a cow or a dog is. Therefore, if I wanted to make sure the reader had a clear picture, the Pokemon species will always stand out. Items too. Unless, it was a story centered around Pokemon, in which, the names I give the Pokemon should be the only ones capitalized (not like I did it).
- I used the hyphen because you always say the [Element]-type together, or sometimes the hardy [Element]-[Element]-type, referring to a species with two types.
- The forms I feel are very important to pay attention to because it can dictate a lot of what the story conflicts can do. If Shaymin needed to fly away from a burning forest, it couldn't do that without being in its Sky Form. I do take the effort to at least show or say once before it becomes the main idea that "yes, this Pokemon is in this form." But writing down "Pokemon [Form]" gets tiring.
- Yes, always. Except, in this thread. I didn't use any.

- As a fan fiction writer, I consistently capitalise the names of Pokémon. There are some extreme grammar Nazis out there who take the debate of capitalisation to a whole new level, but for me, "Pokémon" just looks right! It brings attention to the names, such as Bulbasaur vs. bulbasaur. Don't get me started on "pokemon." :P

- Here I would use grass-type. I only apply the above rules to Pokémon, moves, abilities, and certain items (Poké Ball rather than poké ball/pokeball, and Quick Attack instead of quick attack—it adds oomph!)

- Does adding an E to "form" make it look cooler or something? xD I never use it!

- Always accent E when writing officially! Otherwise I just read it as "poke mon", haha.

- I get the argument over not capitalizing them, but I mostly capitalized the Pokemon names because it's what I've been doing for a while. Lately I've been nicknaming a large chunk of the Pokemon in Foul Play and later works, so I don't refer the Pokemon by their species all that much. As for items it depends. I think for common items like pokeballs and potions I don't capitalize them, but something like specific evolution stones, mega stones, and z-crystals I would capitalize to show their importance.

-I tend to use dark type, water type, etc. without the hypen. For some reason though in like my author notes I do use the hyphen, and from what I can tell it's more grammatically corect.

-On form, formes, not really.

-Back when I was using word on my old laptop the accent e is automatic for Pokemon, so I didn't need to worry much about that. I then got a new laptop without Word and so I would have to do the accent myself. That reminds me, I wrote Chapter Seven of Foul Play on google docs and I forgot to fix that oops. (slaps head).

An interesting subject to talk about, certainly.

bobandbill said:

- To capitalise, or not to capitalise?

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Aaaah the eternal debate that has sparked many an internet "personality"™.

For the Pokémon themselves, I go with capitalize simply because of momentum, but I would not be stranger to writing the species names as common nouns for a change, maybe in a future work or something, and reserve capitalization for something like in-universe actual scientific names such as binomens and the like. As far as I'm concerned, capitalization of the species names only matters if you are working on something that relies on a hard Watsonian-Doylesian divide (something like say a meta story or a document that is supposed to read as a in-universe documentary).

For items and stuff, I honestly wouldn't mind either way ("Assault Vest", "assault vest") although there are things I would leave capitalized as I feel they fit more like in-universe brands (such as the Pokéball themselves).

bobandbill said:

- Grass-type, or Grass type?

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If noun, no hyphen; if adjective (eg.: "grass-type projectile"), I prefer hyphenated.

bobandbill said:

- Do you pay attention to more niche things, such as form/formes?

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Hmmmmm not really, except for taking notes and meta general since I don't write that much that I have got to cover Legendaries with Form(e)s yet but hmmmm maybe I should?

The way I'd go about it: forme is for temporary morphological changes that the specimen has a fair degree of control of (Giratina) and/or if the resulting change is Cool™ (Shaymin), and the more boring, classical form is for everything else.

Similarly I'd surmise that the various Unown forms are named after the small form of the letter (eg.: Unown-b rather than Unown-B) for a number of reasons, including more homogeneity when expanding the worldbuilding to non-English-centric alphabets (Unown-ð, Unown-Ж, Unown-Ꮂ).

bobandbill said:

- Do you put in the effort to have that accented é in Pokémon? Or is it too much of a bother?

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Always. As a member of Latam culture, accénts on vówels is párt of who we are, and are only one keystroke over. Moreover, whenever I see a fellow author missing their és I try to provide them with some, and I have even offered to perform hasty editmastering of texts to éify them where available.

It's also zero marginal effort nowadays, with computers and spellchecks being a thing since this particular problem was solved sometime in the 1970s... perhaps I should write a tutorial (drink the whole bottle if you've heard that one before) on how to go with it for Anglotyping people.

In a perhaps similar token, I have taken to use "₽" (U+20bd, Ruble Sign) as the symbol for Poké-currency where available instead of the generic ¥ or the more boring and anglocentric $, to give my texts a scent of that Glorious Russky Awesomeness. Russian stuff is cool. Besides, it's only two keystrokes cost for me thanks to the marvels of Linux and the Compose Key but I can search-and-replace it where available without issues.

DJTiki said:

- If Shaymin needed to fly away from a burning forest, it couldn't do that without being in its Sky Form. I do take the effort to at least show or say once before it becomes the main idea that "yes, this Pokemon is in this form." But writing down "Pokemon [Form]" gets tiring.

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One advantage here is that form(e)s tend to come with rather obvious changes in physiological capabilities (sans Deoxys pretty much). It's easy to be reminded that Shaymin is currently in Sky Forme if you only have to mention that it is flying away.

Oooooooor you could go the fanon way and refer to Shaymin in this Forme as Skyrim Skymin :p

Hyzenthlay said:

- Does adding an E to "form" make it look cooler or something? xD I never use it!

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Sources have told me that according to their research adding the e in Forme makes a Pokémon instantly 20% cooler indeed! Except Deoxys, for some reason.

bay said:

-Back when I was using word on my old laptop the accent e is automatic for Pokemon, so I didn't need to worry much about that. I then got a new laptop without Word and so I would have to do the accent myself. That reminds me, I wrote Chapter Seven of Foul Play on google docs and I forgot to fix that oops. (slaps head).

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Haaah! I knew I would find someone to help here! If you are having issues with your és feel free to contact me~

(Protip: You can add "Pokémon" to your browser's dictionary listing if you have any dictionary for your machine's language installed (so you can use either British or American English for example) and Google Docs as well as some other online editors should be able to pick the suggestion)

I capitalise because anything south of that is too familiar and indecent. Does your secretary call you Bob? No, she says Mr Crinklejack. I like to maintain decency in my writing. And mental disorder-ish behaviour but blah, blah, blah.

Grass-type, or Grass type?

It used to be the latter, but nowadays... I'd probably go for the former. I've gone dash mad. Or hyphen mad. I don't know what the heck it's called.

Do you pay attention to more niche things, such as form/formes?

Nope!

Do you put in the effort to have that accented é in Pokémon? Or is it too much of a bother?

Not always in the moment. I just use 'find and replace', and then vanquish all of those pesky non-accented e's. Nothing if not professional.