At my company you can take a course where you can receive training in being a "Super Helper." (Real program name anonymized to protect the innocent.) When, if ever, should we capitalize "Super Helper"?
Like a title, I imagine if we were to say "Super Helper Dave," it should be capitalized.
What about if we say, "Come to this class so you can become a Super Helper!" Should it be capitalized then?
Does being plural make any difference? For example, should it be capitalized in a sentence such as, "We have twenty-seven Super Helpers"?
My instinct was to capitalize Super Helper like a person's title, which I would normally only capitalize before a person's name, but I'm not convinced this is really a person's title. Maybe it's a "name of a program"? Is it more appropriate to capitalize it in order to distinguish it as a particular, specific program?
Thank you!
Answer
Whether it's a title or not, these two sentences are invariant:
Come to this class so you can become a super helper.
We have twenty-seven super helpers.
To see this, if you decide it is a title, replace "super helper" with "doctor" and the correct capitalization will be clear. If it's not a title, while you might capitalize the "Super Helper program" as it's a name, you would not capitalize the product of the program, i.e. the "super helpers."
It does not seem like "super helper" would be an official title or honorific at your company as it's pretty condescending (perhaps the actual program sounds better). If it is functioning as a person's title, the only instance it is capitalized is directly preceding their name, as in "Give your report to Super Helper John." Note that some titles are exceptional; you should "Bow before the King," but "Submit your work to the professor."
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