Do you ever wonder if you should capitalize a season in your writing?
- The season of fall is my favorite season of all.
- The season of Fall is my favorite season of all.
Which one is correct? Well, despite my poor attempt at poetry, the rules of whether to capitalize seasons are actually quite simple.
When we are writing seasons in our text, we do not capitalize them or any of their derivatives. That means that spring, summer, fall, autumn, winter, and any words that are formed from them such as springtime or summertime should appear in lowercase letters. For example,
- March 21 is the first day of spring.
- On Groundhog Day we find out if we will have six more weeks on winter.
- The smell of springtime is quite pleasant.
There are, however, a few exceptions to this rule—of course. But don’t worry; they are also very easy to remember.
The first exception to the lowercase rule is if the season appears in a formal name. For example,
- Yesterday, I went ice-skating at the Ann Arbor Winter Sports Complex.
In this example, the season “Winter” appears in the formal name of the sporting complex and should therefore remain capitalized.
The second exception to the rule is if the season appears in lieu of a month for a journal or publication. For instance, some journals, or even magazines, do not come out every month but they come out seasonally. In this case, they would have a Fall issue or a Summer issue. The seasons would be capitalized. For example,
- The recipes in the Fall issue of Great Food Cooking are always spectacular.
Aside from these two rules, seasons should always be lowercased.