'constitution' or 'Constitution'?

If I am referring to a specific country's constitution, but not to America's, should the word 'constitution' be capitalised or not? Edit: I think that giving an example would help make my question more clear. "In China's 1978 Constitution, we can see that. " I have seen 'constitution' capitalised often when referring to America's constitution. In this case, however, I do not want to refer to the American constitution, so my question is: should I or should I not capitalise 'constitution' here?

What do you mean by 'but not to America's? Did you mean it as country or continent e.g., North America?

@IqbalAhmedSiyal How could OP have meant a continent? Continents don't have constitutions. Let's not start an argument over how some people think "America" can't be used to refer to the USA.

@AzorAhai, I meant both that America can be used to refer to the USA as well as its continent. That's the reason I asked the OP. :)

Here is the link in which OED refers America as the USA as well as the continents, north, south and central America: en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/america

3 Answers 3

Technically, 'constitution', (like 'president') is not a proper noun so it shouldn't be capitalised. But American veneration for their political system's institutions is such that these terms have taken on the status of proper nouns. And the decision to capitalise (or not) such terms is codified in media style guides. The (UK) Guardian takes a somewhat iconoclastic view in such things (even for UK institutions), often choosing not to capitalise these terms, and not even 'queen' unless it's referring formally to Queen Elizabeth II.

In answer to your question, then, as a non-US person, I would recommend not capitalising 'constitution' at all, ever, unless it's the first word in a sentence!

I'm aware that many Americans will, of course, disagree with me. I'm happy (if that's the word) to refer to President Donald J. Trump; but also to say Mr. Trump is the president of the United States, which has a constitution dating from September 17, 1787.

In general, when one is discussing a named document or committee or some such, if a common word in the official title is used as a shorthand name for the entity, that word may be capitalized. (It's not a given -- there are several issues with regard to style and context.)

For instance, in an article discussing "The Constitution of the United States of America" (or perhaps "The US Constitution"), it would be fairly normal to use the capitalized "the Constitution" as a shorthand term, after the full name had been spelled out once in the article.

Similarly, in a story about "The Committee to Re-Elect the Erroneous President", it would be normal to use capitalized "the Committee" after the first appearance of the full name.

This doesn't happen all the time -- as I said, it depends on style and context.