On Saturday, August 23, 2003, at 08:37  PM, Philip Bloom wrote:

"Are you, now. Well, well." He shifted lazily on his stool, lowering
his voice. "Got a little proposition for you, miss restaurant owner."

ECB: Capitialize your proper nouns, "Miss Restaurant Owner."

"The name's Ukyo," she said a little warily. "Ukyo Kuonji. What'd you
have in mind, mister customer?"

ECB: Same here, "Mister Customer"

Capitalize proper nouns...but these aren't proper nouns, and they're 
not even titles; they're what the Chicago Manual of Style calls 
"role-denoting ad hoc epithets." According to 7.28, these should not be 
capitalized.

The examples in the style guide are somewhat different as they are not 
in direct address, but 7.27 mentions some direct address titles such as 
"Your Honor" which are capitalized, but "my lord," "sir," and "madam" 
are not.

For further consideration, in 7.31 kinship names are capitalized when 
used before or in place of a proper name. However, civil titles (7.19), 
military titles (7.20), religious titles (7.21), professional titles 
(7.22), and titles of nobility (7.23) are capitalized only when 
attached to proper names, and not when used in place of them.

Except that in 7.17 it says "Titles used in place of names in direct 
address are capitalized." The question is, then, whether "mister 
customer" is a title. "Customer" is not a title since it is a 
role-denoting ad hoc epithet. "Mister" is, however, one of those things 
that is always capitalized when attached to a name. "Mister Tenshi" 
would always have both words capitalized. However, "mister" by itself 
would not be capitalized, on the lines of "sir" and "madam" from 7.27. 
So since neither "mister" nor "customer" (nor "miss" nor "restaurant 
owner") would be capitalized on its own, there's nothing to support 
capitalizing them when written together. Also, according to 7.28 you 
wouldn't capitalize "customer" even if you said "customer Tenshi." (I 
have to assume that because you would capitalize "Mister Tenshi" you 
would also capitalize "Mister Customer Tenshi," but that would be a 
very affected form of address.)

Peter


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