Universe or universe?

Question

When to use Universe or universe?

I'm editing a document where it is "The Creator of the universe". Is it correct?

Answer 1

"Universe" is not, by itself, a proper noun. So strictly speaking, "universe" is correct.

However, in literature, it's common enough to capitalize things if they are "special" enough.

For example, perhaps you have a story that features a legendary book. Consider the following passage:

"He has read the Book", said the man. You could hear the capital "B". The crowd gasped.

Clearly "book" is not a proper noun, but given the right context anything can be a proper noun.

Maybe, in your case, if you are considering a multiverse, there may be a special universe... The Universe. If you're just speaking about universes, or our universe, in general, then use the lowercase form.

Answer 2

I am not sure why mfoy's excellent answer made in the English Language & Usage is not showing up as an answer in the Writers SE. I agree with him or her that in general the noun "universe" is a common noun rather than a proper noun and so does not take a capital letter.

I think that the reason that the capitalisation does look slightly odd in the phrase you quote, "The Creator of the universe", is that in this context "Creator" is given a capital letter because it refers to God. Not everyone agrees with the traditional convention that pronouns and other words referring to God should take an initial capital letter, but these "reverential capitals" are still quite often seen. Anyway the presence of the capital letter for "Creator" kind of sets up an expectation of a capital letter for "universe" as well, even though technically I think that would be wrong.

Answer 3

Universe is, by definition, something that there, necessarily, exists only one instance of. We cannot conceive of anything outside the universe, because whatever we conceive to exist would be a part of the universe. Again, this doesn't just happen to be so; it follows from the way the word is defined. (In saying this, I set aside the use of the word in some works of science fiction, which is not literal.)

This means that the standard ways of drawing the distinction between proper and common nouns cannot be readily applied to universe. Ordinarily, we say that something is a common noun when we can imagine its applying to more than one object (even if it happens to actually apply to only one); the universe is not like that, because it is necessarily unique. On the other hand, unlike a typical proper name, universe is not just a label that is arbitrarily assigned to a particular object; it has a definition.

Because of this, there is no definite, conclusive argument as to whether universe is a proper or a common noun. Reasonable people may differ on how they treat it, and neither way can be dismissed as obviously mistaken. Those who think of it as a proper name will capitalise it, as any other proper name; those who think of it as a common noun, won't.

(A similar question can, incidentally, be raised, and the same answer given, about the capitalisation of internet.)

Answer 4

Don't we capitalize titles which people have; for example, Director of The Children's Library or Vice President of Accounting? It would seem that Creator of the Universe is a title which we give to G-d. Therefore, as a title, I believe in that context, universe should be capitalized.