Hi!
Is there any difference in meaning in the following:
Indian summer - capitalised
indian summer - lower case.
The book written by Graham King: Good Punctuation, 2000 states under Miscellany: indian summer, nothing more is written about the capital letters in this case. Sometimes it is extremely difficult for non native speakers to understand the rules of English language. The rules are different from book to book.
Thanks
As you probably know, while âIndian summerâ can literally mean âa summer in Indiaâ, it is most often used to mean a period of warm autumn weather, or, figuratively, a happy or productive episode at the end of a period of time (such as oneâs life).
Whatever its meaning, I would always write it as âIndian summerâ. âindian summerâ looks wrong to me.
I understand that it can look a wrong to you, however, the above mentioned book states indian summer with lower case. 
I would also always capitalise âIndianâ.
I notice that Collins English Dictionary lists it as âindian summerâ. All other dictionaries Iâve checked list it only with âIndianâ capitalised. Google Book results also show an overwhelming preference for âIndianâ to be capitalised:
books.google.com/ngrams/graph?co ⌠moothing=3
Of course, some of these results may be using the term literally, in which case âIndianâ would certainly need capitalising, and others may be in title case, but even so it seems pretty conclusive.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary â which is American, and after all, America is where we have Indian summer and where the term originated â calls for âIndian summerâ with a capital âIâ. So does the Oxford UK dictionary. And Iâve never seen it with a small I in my life.
TakĹže jĂĄ bych povaĹžoval to malĂŠ pĂsmeno za vystĹednost nakladatelsvĂ Collins. ZdĂĄ se, Ĺže nikdo jinĂ˝ ten vĂ˝raz s malĂ˝m i nepĂĹĄe.
TakĹže bych to malĂŠ pĂsmeno povaĹžoval za vĂ˝stĹednost od Collins Publishing. ZdĂĄ se, Ĺže nikdo jinĂ˝ nepĂĹĄe vĂ˝raz s malĂ˝m.
My understanding is that this is a matter of style. In modern âpolitically correctâ times, the style sheets of publishers capitalize ethic groups. So words like Indian, Hispanic, Black or White are capitalized.
I grew up before political correctness. What we call political correctness really took off in the late 70s and early 80s. When I was young I donât think those words were capitalized, but I donât remember for sure. We still called the natives in the Americas âindiansâ. Iâm not even sure if this would be considered an ethnic group since itâs a broad umbrella term for large groups of vastly different peoples, languages and cultures. I donât think the word native, which has the same meaning, would be capitalized.
Supposedly the term âIndian summerâ came from natives who told the early European settlers that a second summer would occur later in the fall after the first frost or snow. Where I live we typically have a strong Indian summers.
To be on the safe side, it would probably be best to capitalize all ethnic groups. In this case itâs an adjective and not even referring to an ethnic group, but itâs still probably a good idea to capitalize it.