Question

the ohio river was originally called "the assumption." I home school my 11 year old daughter, and my teacher book tell me to correct like this.... The Ohio River was originally called "the assumption." Is that correct?

Answer 1

I'm not sure what this teacher book is or who wrote it, but there seems to be a lot of inaccuracies in it. To my best knowledge, if the Ohio River used to be called "The Assumption" (which I cannot find any evidence that it was, but that's beside the point) the that would make it a proper name. Proper names are always capitalized unless there is some reason not to. For example, Edward Estlin Cummings name was often abbreviated to e. e. cummings (all lower case) as a reflection of his poetic style even though he himself signed his name using capitals. So if for some reason, the people of the time spelled "the assumption" without capitals I suppose that could be considered correct. However, as I stated I cannot find a single reference to the Ohio River ever being called the assumption. Therefore it should be capitalized.

What is the name of this teacher's book? I would like to look it up and do a bit of research on it.

Answer 2

Good Morning, The book is English 5 for Young Catholics, by Seton Press. The anwers are in the back of the book. Seton Press has an impeccable reputation, but I was thinking the same as you, if they were using it as a title/proper name, it should be capitalized. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about this book. Thanks and God Bless, Anna

Answer 3

Hmm. Yeah Seton Press has a pretty good reputation, but sometimes things do slip by the editors. I have not found many factual errors in my text books, but I have found typographical errors in many of them. It would seem like that is what we are dealing with here, except that you would think they would take extra care editing the answer key. So these errors are inexplicable. What edition do you have? If it is earlier than the 2010 Ed., it would be interesting to compare it to the 2010 Ed.