For any and Polytonic Greek below.
Capitalization Custom varies with Language .
The full rules of capitalization for English are complicated and have changed over time, generally to capitalize fewer terms; to the modern reader, an 18th Century document seems to use initial capitals excessively. It is an important function of English Style Guide s to describe the complete current rules.
- In English, the Nominative form of the singular first-person Pronoun , ''I'', is capitalized, along with all its contractions (''I'll'', ''I'm'', etc).
- Many European languages capitalize nouns and pronouns used to refer to God : ''Hallowed be Thy name''. Some English authors capitalize any word referring to God: ''the Lamb'', ''the Almighty''.
- Some languages capitalize the Formal Second-person Pronoun . German ''Sie'' is capitalized along with all its declensions (''Ihre'', ''Ihres'', etc.), and before the Spelling Reform , the informal pronoun ''Du'' (you) (and its derivatives, such as ''Dein'') was also capitalized in letters. Italian also capitalises its formal pronouns, ''Lei'' and ''Loro'', and their cases (even within words, eg ''arrivederLa'' "good bye", formal). This is occasionally likewise done for the Dutch ''U''. In Spanish , the abbreviation of the pronoun ''usted'', ''Ud.'' or ''Vd.'', is usually written with a capital. Similarly, in Russian the formal second-person pronoun Вы with its cases Ваш, Вашего etc. is capitalised, but only when addressing someone personally (usually in personal correspondence).
- In Formal ly Written Polish (the same rules apply also in Czech and Slovak ), most notably in Letter s and E-mail s, all pronouns referring to the addressee are capitalized. This includes not only ''ty'' (''you'') and all its declensions (''twój'', ''ciebie'' etc.), but also any plural pronouns encompassing the addresse, such as ''wy'' (plural ''you''), including declensions. This principle extends to Noun s used in formal Third Person (when used to address the letter addressee), such as ''Pan'' (''sir'') and ''Pani'' (''madame'').
- In German, all Noun s are capitalized. This was also the practice in Danish before a Spelling Reform in 1948 .
- In nearly all European languages, single-word Proper Noun s (including personal names) are capitalized, e.g., '' France '', '' Moses ''. Multiple-word proper nouns usually follow rules like the traditional English rules for publication titles (see Below ), e.g., '' Robert The Bruce ''.
- --- A few English names may be written with two lowercase f's: ''ffrench'', ''ffoulkes'', etc. This ff fossilizes an older misreading of a Blackletter uppercase F.
- --- Some individuals choose not to use capitals with their names, such as K.d. Lang or Bell Hooks . E. E. Cummings , whose name is often spelt without capitals, did not spell his name so; the usage derives from the Typography used on the cover of one of his books.
- --- Most Brand names and Trademark s are capitalised (e.g., Microsoft , Pepsi ). although some have chosen to deviate from standard rules (e.g., EasyJet , Id Software , EBay ) to be distinctive.
- In English — though not in any other major European Language except German — the names of days of the Week , Month s and Language s are capitalized.
- Capitalization is always used for most names of .
- A more controversial practice followed by some authors, though few if any style guides, treats the Common Name s of some animal and plant Species as proper nouns, and uses initial majuscules for them (e.g., ''Peregrine Falcon'', ''Red Pine''), while not capitalizing others (e.g., ''horse'' or ''person''). This is most common for Birds and Fish es. Botanists generally reject the practice of capitalizing the common names of Plant s, though individual words of plant names may be capitalized by another rule (e.g., ''Italian stone pine''). See the discussion of official common names under Common Name for an explanation.
- Common nouns may be capitalized when used as names for the entire class of such things, e.g. ''what a piece of work is Man''. French often capitalizes such nouns as ''l'État'' (the state) and ''l'Église'' (the church) when not referring to specific ones.
- The names of gods are capitalized, including '' Allah '', '' Vishnu '', and '' God ''. The word ''god'' is not capitalized if it is used to refer to the generic idea of a Deity , nor is it capitalized when it refers to multiple gods, e.g., '' Roman Gods ''. There may be some confusion because the Judeo-Christian god is not referred to by a specific name, but simply as ''God''. Other names for the Judeo-Christian god, such as ''Elohim'' and ''Lord'', are also capitalized.
- In English, Adjective s derived from proper nouns (except the names of characters in fictional works) usually retain their capitalization – e.g. a ''Christian'' church, ''Canadian'' whisky, a ''Shakespearian'' sonnet, but a ''quixotic'' mission, a ''chauvinist'' pig, and ''malapropism'', ''holmesian'' and ''pecksniffian''. Where the original capital is no longer at the beginning of the word, usage varies: ''anti-Christian'', but ''Presocratic'' or ''Pre-Socratic'' or ''presocratic'' (not ''preSocratic'')
- Such adjectives do not receive capitals in German (''sokratisch'', ''präsokratisch''), French (''socratique'', ''présocratique'') or Polish (''sokratejski'', ''presokratejski''). Adjectives Referring To Nationality Or Ethnicity are not capitalized, but nouns are: ''un navire canadien'', a Canadian ship; ''un Canadien,'' a Canadian.
Other uses of capitalization include:
- In most modern languages, the first Word in a Sentence is capitalized, as is the first word in any quoted sentence.
- ---In Latin and Ancient Greek they are not.
- ---For some terms a capital as first letter is avoided by avoiding their use at the beginning of a sentence, or by writing it in lowercase even at the beginning of a sentence. E.g., '' PH '' looks unfamiliar written ''PH'', and ''m'' and ''M'' may even have different meanings, Milli and Mega .
- ---In Dutch, ''’t'', ''d’'', or ''’s'' in names or sayings are never capitalized, even at the start of sentences. (See Compound Names below).
- Most English Honorific s and Title s of persons, e.g. ''Doctor Watson'', ''Mrs Jones'', ''His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh''.
- ---This does not apply where the words are not titles; e.g. ''Watson is a doctor, Philip is a duke.''
- Traditionally, the first word of each line in a piece of , Paradise Lost I:752–756)
- --- Modern Poets often ignore or defy this convention.
- The English Vocative Particle ''O'', an archaic form of address, e.g. ''Thou, O king, art a king of kings''.
In English, there even are few words whose meaning (and, sometimes, pronunciation) varies with capitalization. See: List Of Case Sensitive English Words .
In English-language publications, different conventions are used for capitalizing words in publication titles and headlines, including chapter and section headings. The main examples are:
; THE VITAMINS ARE IN MY FRESH BRUSSELS SPROUTS : all-uppercase letters
; The Vitamins Are In My Fresh Brussels Sprouts : capitalization of all words, regardless of the Part Of Speech
; The Vitamins Are in My Fresh Brussels Sprouts : capitalization of all words, except for internal Article s, Preposition s and Conjunction s
; The Vitamins are in My Fresh Brussels Sprouts : capitalization of all words, except for internal articles, prepositions, conjunctions and forms of ''to be''
; The Vitamins are in my Fresh Brussels Sprouts : capitalization of all words, except for internal Closed-class Word s
; The Vitamins are in my fresh Brussels Sprouts : capitalization of all Noun s
; The vitamins are in my fresh Brussels sprouts : sentence-style capitalization ( Sentence Case ), only the first word and Proper Noun s are capitalized
; the vitamins are in my fresh Brussels sprouts : capitalization of Proper Noun s only
; the vitamins are in my fresh brussels sprouts : all-lowercase letters
Among U.S. publishers, it is still a common typographic practice to capitalize additional words in titles. This is an old form of Emphasis , similar to the more modern practice of using a larger or boldface font for titles. The exact rules differ between individual house styles. Most capitalize all words except for internal closed-class words, or internal articles, prepositions and conjunctions. Some capitalize longer prepositions such as "between", but not shorter ones. Some capitalize even only nouns, others capitalize all words.
The convention followed by British publishers is the same used in many other languages (e.g., French, German), namely to use sentence-style capitalization in titles and headlines, where capitalization follows the same rules that apply for sentences. This is also widely used in the U.S., especially in bibliographic references and library catalogues. This convention is also used in the International Organization For Standardization and house styles.
Book titles are often emphasized on cover and title pages through the use of all-uppercase letters. Both British and U.S. publishers use this convention.
In creative typography, for example music record covers and other artistic material, all styles are commonly encountered, including all-lowercase letters.
- In Dutch, ''’t'', ''d’'', or ''’s'' in names or sayings are never capitalized, even at the start of sentences. They are short for the ), the particle "van" in a surname is not capitalized if a forename or initial precedes it. So ''Franky van der Elst'' in prose becomes ''Van der Elst, Franky'' in a list.
- In English, practice varies when the name starts with a particle with a meaning such as "from" or "the" or "son of".
- ---Some of these particles (''Mac'', ''Mc'', ''M'', ''O'') are always capitalized; others (''L'', ''Van'') are usually capitalized; still others often are not (''d''', ''de'', ''di'', ''von''). If the particle is written as two or more words, the same capitalization applies to both (''De La'' or ''de la'').
- --- The remaining part of such a name, following the particle, is always capitalized if it is set off with a space as a separate word, or if the particle was not capitalized. It is normally capitalized if the particle is ''Mc'', ''M'', or ''O''. In other cases (including ''Mac''), there is no set rule.
In most languages which use Diacritic s, these are treated the same way in uppercase whether the text is capitalized or all-uppercase. They may be always preserved (as in German) or always omitted (as, often, in French and Spanish).
- However, in the Polytonic Orthography used for Greek prior to 1982 , accents were omitted in all-uppercase words, but kept as part of an uppercase initial (written before rather than above the letter). The latter situation is provided for by title-case characters in Unicode.
Some languages treat certain Digraph s as letters. In general, where one such is formed as a Ligature , the corresponding uppercase form is used in capitalization; where it is written as two separate characters, only the first will be capitalized. Thus '' Oedipus '' or ''Œdipus'' are both correct, but ''OEdipus'' is not. Examples with ligature include '' Ærøskøbing '' in Danish , where '' Æ/æ '' is a letter rather than a merely Typographic ligature; with separate characters include '' Llanelli '' in Welsh , where '' Ll '' is a single letter.
- An exception is the Dutch letter '' IJ ''. Originally a ligature (''ij''/''IJ''), both components are capitalized even though they are now usually printed separately, as in '' IJsselmeer ''. A less-used practice is the letter '' Y '' as an alternative to the ligature, e.g. '' Ysselmeer ''. This is still used in cursive writing and in Inscription s.
- A converse exception exists in the Croatian Alphabet , where digraph letters ( Dž , Lj , Nj ) have mixed-case forms even when written as ligatures. With Typewriter s and Computer s, these "title-case" forms have become less common than 2-character equivalents; nevertheless they can be represented as single title-case characters in Unicode (, , ).
In languages where Inflected forms of a word may have Extra Letters At The Start , the capitalized letter may be the initial of the root form rather of than the inflected form. For example, Slievenamon is in Irish written ''Sliabh na mBan'' ("women's mountain", where mBan Derives from Bean, "woman"), even though the B is in fact Mute in the derived form.
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