Guard or guard?

When calling a spade a spade at least there is no confusion as to what they are.  Individual members of 'The Elite Guard' are guards. Just as members of the  'Plumbers Guild' are plumbers. This must be true, else when referring to an individual you'd have to write, 'The Guard's dagger' or 'the Plumber's wrench' which is wrong because it should be,  The guard's dagger' or 'the plumber's wrench.'

This standard issue Guards Dagger, found buried up to the hilt in the prisoners eye socket is that particular guard's dagger i.e. her property.  And this Plumber's Wrench, belongs to that plumber. It is from his toolbox and he asked that a colleague, a fellow plumber, pass him said Plumbers Wrench.   

Forming a group of elite guards into a force called The Elite Guard presents another issue which is rank. Capitalize a military rank when used as a formal title before an individual's name but not in description.  The Commander in Chief is a commander just as Private Benjamin is merely a private.

The British Army has regiments of Guards. (The Scots Guards, the Coldstream Guards etc.) they get around the issue by referring to the guards who serve in The Guards, as guardsmen because their rank is Guardsman.

This confusion was resolved in the year 423 BC when the Romans named their force of elite guards, the Praetorian Guard. The members can then be formally called Praetorians and informally guards.

I'm only venturing a guess too, Vern. Taking a stab at it. Your 'Mom' reasoning is astute and extremely plausible.

Best, Kate

This is very interesting. My WIP has Skills that are magical abilities: things like Creation, FarTravel (which I have changed to Jumping due to far too many Fart Ravel jokes...) FarSpeech, etc. Also characters who are High Mistress (of the school) and Team Leaders. I am forever being picked up to put these in lower case, but I don't want to! They will remain U/C to differentiate them from ordinary words. I can't see any other way.

Yup. Thanks

Stormtrooper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stormtroopers were specialist soldiers of the German Army in World War I. In the last years of the war, Stoßtruppen ("shock troops" or "thrust troops") were trained to fight with "infiltration tactics", part of the Germans' new method of attack on enemy trenches.[1] Men trained in these methods were known in Germany as Sturmmann ("storm man", usually translated as "stormtrooper"), formed into companies of Sturmtruppen ("assault troops", more often and less exactly "storm troops"). The infiltration tactics of the stormtroopers are still in use today, in one form or another. Other armies have also used the term "assault troops", "shock troops" or fireteams for specialist soldiers who perform the infiltration tasks of stormtroopers.

(I know--more than anyone wants to know,but I wanted to share the historical perspective.) See? when talking about the organization,it's capitalized.

JP / Norm -- when you are reading about Germany, you need to remember that in German ALL nouns are capitalised, so there would never be a sturmmann, for example, it simply doesn't exist in German. So this particular section might imply that the organisation is capitalised, but it may or may not be. The English section at the end is not capitalised as it is using English words there.

Damn! I knew I should have studied more than the Romance languages. Nice catch, Lynne. Does that mean my reasoning was false? I hate self-doubt.  JP