Give One Rule for Capitalization in English
Post 1 of 32
C'mon Guys!
Rules for Capitalization?
For serious students of formal English.
Can you give a rule for capitalization in English? Try to use proper rules of punctuation and capitalization in your answer please, or at least do your best.
1. ganapathie: at start of sentence
2. Randilinho: the pronoun "I"
3. adimec: days of the week and months of the year
4. honeymoon: countries and cities
5. zorpia: a person's name (i.e., proper nouns)
6. shona: name of a language
7. macs2005: full sentence direct quotations
8. adseaco: first letter after a full stop
9. Professor Carl: SCREAMING on the Internet
10. macs2005: a person's title when it precedes their name
11. Professor Carl: words in reference to the Supreme Deity
2. Randilinho: the pronoun "I"
3. adimec: days of the week and months of the year
4. honeymoon: countries and cities
5. zorpia: a person's name (i.e., proper nouns)
6. shona: name of a language
7. macs2005: full sentence direct quotations
8. adseaco: first letter after a full stop
9. Professor Carl: SCREAMING on the Internet
10. macs2005: a person's title when it precedes their name
11. Professor Carl: words in reference to the Supreme Deity
12. macs2005: first word of a salutation and the first word of a complimentary close
13. adimec: pronouns in reference to the Supreme Deity
14. honeymoon: holidays
15. honeymoon: (varying among styles) important words in an article's title
16. macs2005: directional words such as they refer to the Orient and the Occident, "the East" meets "the West"
17. Professor Carl: letters in the middle of some words that are compound nouns of two proper nouns, such as IndoEuropean, AmerIndian
18. adseaco: temperature: telsius or centigrade (C), Fahrenheit (F).
19. Professor Carl: certain acronyms, such as NATO, KGB, FBI, PRC.
20. cooleye: a brand name
21. Professor Carl: entire sub-heading, as dictated in certain style manuals for academic papers
22. Professor Carl: in the camel style of naming files, thisDemonstratesTheStyle.htm
23. Professor Carl: important, large place names on maps are in all-caps
13. adimec: pronouns in reference to the Supreme Deity
14. honeymoon: holidays
15. honeymoon: (varying among styles) important words in an article's title
16. macs2005: directional words such as they refer to the Orient and the Occident, "the East" meets "the West"
17. Professor Carl: letters in the middle of some words that are compound nouns of two proper nouns, such as IndoEuropean, AmerIndian
18. adseaco: temperature: telsius or centigrade (C), Fahrenheit (F).
19. Professor Carl: certain acronyms, such as NATO, KGB, FBI, PRC.
20. cooleye: a brand name
21. Professor Carl: entire sub-heading, as dictated in certain style manuals for academic papers
22. Professor Carl: in the camel style of naming files, thisDemonstratesTheStyle.htm
23. Professor Carl: important, large place names on maps are in all-caps
19 Jul 2007 05:43
Post 3 of 32
Pronouns: In English, the nominative form of the singular first-person pronoun, "I", is capitalized, along with all its contractions (I'll, I'm, etc). ![[em11]](http://img.alibaba.com/images/eng/style/icon/emoticons_sweat.gif)
(Professor Carl's note: Adding the contraction information is a very nice touch. By the way, "Nominative form" is the same as "subject form". Other examples of contracted forms are "I've, I'd" for "I have, I would."
20 Jul 2007 08:35
Post 4 of 32
English-speaking people perceive the names of days and months as proper names (not the case in all languages) and consequently write them starting with a capital letter.
Professor Carl's note: Nicely put, but I would further say that it is not so much perception as convention... some time in the past the practice was frozen into the rule book. Some of the names of the days and months were named afters gods -- and what entities could be less deserving of "proper noun" status.
Professor Carl's note: Nicely put, but I would further say that it is not so much perception as convention... some time in the past the practice was frozen into the rule book. Some of the names of the days and months were named afters gods -- and what entities could be less deserving of "proper noun" status.
20 Jul 2007 09:33
Post 5 of 32
Replying to [Professor Carl]:
When we describe defferent countries and cities all over world, we should use capitalization.
Good. This falls under the class "proper nouns".
When we describe defferent countries and cities all over world, we should use capitalization.
Good. This falls under the class "proper nouns".
23 Jul 2007 18:50
Post 6 of 32
Replying to honeymoon:
When we describe different countries and cities all over the world, we should use capitalization.Good job honeymoon. With your tremendous dedication to participation in the English Corner, you are going to be a very skillful user of English.
24 Jul 2007 04:16
Post 7 of 32
Replying to [Professor Carl]:[em1
Name of the person, must be capital in first letter
Good!! This too falls under "proper noun".
Name of the person, must be capital in first letter
Good!! This too falls under "proper noun".
25 Jul 2007 01:15
Post 8 of 32
When we use any language's name we use capital letter. For example: English, German, Dutch etc.
25 Jul 2007 04:49
Post 9 of 32
Capitalize the first word of a direct quotation, except when the quotation is split.
E.g.
Joyce asked, “Do you think that the lecture was interesting?”
“No,” I responded, “it was very boring.”
Tom Paine said, “The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately.”
macs2005![[em10]](http://img.alibaba.com/images/eng/style/icon/emoticons_silly.gif)
E.g.
Joyce asked, “Do you think that the lecture was interesting?”
“No,” I responded, “it was very boring.”
Tom Paine said, “The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately.”
macs2005
26 Jul 2007 00:27
Post 10 of 32
reply from macs2005:
Capitalize the first word of a direct quotation, except when the quotation is split.
E.g.
Joyce asked, “Do you think that the lecture was interesting?”
“No,” I responded, “it was very boring.”
Tom Paine said, “The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately.”
macs2005
Good one. Often you will see direct quotations of a fragmentary kind without the capital,
as when Paine said of things sublime and ridiculous, one can't "class them separately."
26 Jul 2007 05:47
