Capitalization (American English) or capitalisation (Commonwealth English) is the practice of writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in lower case, in writing systems with a case distinction. The term also may refer to the use of uppercase letters in general, or the choice between uppercase and lowercase.
The rules of capitalization vary between conventional writing systems (orthographies) and over time. The systematic use of capitalized and uncapitalized words in running text is called mixed case. There are various names for different capitalization rules, including sentence case and title case.
Description Capitalization is the practice of writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in lower case, in writing systems with a case distinction. The term also may refer to the use of uppercase letters in general, or the choice between uppercase and lowercase.
The systematic use of capitalized and uncapitalized words in running text is called mixed case.
History The rules of capitalization vary between conventional writing systems (orthographies) and over time. For instance, the full rules of capitalization in English are complicated and have changed over time, generally to capitalize fewer words; the conventions used in an 18th-century document will be unfamiliar to a modern reader of English (e.g., many common nouns were capitalized).
Conventions Orthographies have different conventions for capitalization, for example, the capitalization of titles. Conventions also vary, to a lesser extent, between different style guides. In addition to the Latin script, capitalization also affects the Armenian, Cyrillic, Georgian and Greek alphabets.
Owing to the essentially arbitrary nature of orthographic classification and the existence of variant authorities and local house styles, questionable capitalization of words is not uncommon, even in respected newspapers and magazines. Most publishers require consistency, at least within the same document, in applying a specified standard: this is described as house style.
Parts of speech
Pronouns
In English, the subjective form of the singular first-person pronoun, "I", is capitalized, along with all its contractions such as I'll and I'm. Objective and possessive forms ("me", "my", and "mine") are not. Many European languages traditionally capitalize nouns and pronouns used to refer to God, including references to Jesus Christ (reverential capitals): hallowed be Thy name, look what He has done. Some English authors capitalize any word referring to God: the Lamb, the Almighty; some capitalize "Thy Name". These practices have become much less common in English in the 20th and 21st centuries. In Baháʼí literature, singular and plural object, subject, and possessive forms are capitalized if referring to a Rasul, the Twelve Imams, or 'Abdu'l-Baha. Some languages capitalize a royal we (), such as in German.
2nd-person pronouns Many languages distinguish between formal and informal 2nd-person pronouns. In German, the formal 2nd-person plural pronoun is capitalized along with all its case-forms (, , etc.), but these words are not capitalized when used as 3rd-person feminine singular or plural pronouns. Until the recent German spelling reform(s), the traditional rules (which are still widely adhered to, although not taught in schools) also capitalized the informal 2nd-person singular pronoun (and its derivatives, such as ) when used in letters or similar texts, but this is no longer required. Italian also capitalizes its formal pronouns, and , and their cases (even within words, e.g. "goodbye", formal). This is occasionally also done for the Dutch , though this is formally only required when referring to a deity and may be considered archaic. In Spanish, the abbreviations of the pronouns and , , , , and , are usually written with a capital. In Finnish and Estonian, the second-person plural pronoun can be used when formally addressing a single person, and in writing the pronoun is sometimes capitalized as to indicate special regard. In a more familiar tone, one can also capitalize the second-person singular pronoun ( in Estonian). Similarly, in Russian the formal second-person pronoun , and its oblique cases , etc., are capitalized (usually in personal correspondence); also in Bulgarian. Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian capitalize the formal second-person pronoun along with its oblique cases (, , ) and personal pronoun ( etc.) in formal correspondence. Historically, the familiar second-person pronoun and its cases (, , ) were capitalized as well, but new orthography prohibits such use. In Danish, the plural second-person pronoun, , is capitalized, but its other forms and are not. This distinguishes it from the preposition ("in"). The less commonly used formal singular second-person pronoun is also capitalized in all its forms (, , ), distinguishing it from the otherwise identical third-person plural pronouns. In Norwegian, both second-person singular and plural have a capitalized alternative form (, , in Bokmål; , , in Nynorsk) to express formality for both subject and object of a sentence, but is very rarely used in modern speech and writing. In formally written Polish, Czech, Slovak and Latvian, most notably in letters and e-mails, all pronouns referring to the addressee are capitalized. This includes ("thou") and all its related forms such as and . This principle extends to nouns used formally to address the addressee of a letter, such as ("sir") and ("madam"). In Indonesian, capitalizing the formal second-person pronoun along with all references to the addressee, such as "" ((to) Sir/Madam), is required in practice of (Perfected Orthography).General Guide to Perfected Spelling of the Indonesian Language, Section: Capital Letters (in Indonesian) from Indonesian Wikisource. However, some people do not know of or choose not to adhere to this spelling rule. In contrast, Malay orthography used in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei does not require the capitalization of . In Tagalog and its standard form, Filipino, the formal second-person pronouns and and their oblique form are customarily and reverentially capitalized as such, particularly in most digital and printed media related to religion and its references. Purists who consider this rule as nonstandard and inconsistent do not apply it when writing. In Tajik, capitalization is used to distinguish the second-person formal pronoun from the second-person plural pronoun . In Swedish, since , the second-person singular pronoun may be capitalized as when addressed formally.
Nouns The various languages and dialects in the High German family, including Standard German and Luxembourgish, are the only major languages using the Latin alphabet in which all nouns (including nominalized verbs) are capitalized. This was also practiced in other Germanic languages (mainly due to German influence): Danish, before the spelling reform of 1948 Norwegian, before the spelling reform of 1901 Swedish, during the 17th and 18th centuries English, during the 17th and 18th centuriesCambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, p.65 (as in Gulliver's Travels, and most of the original 1787 United States Constitution) Some regional languages, such as Saterland Frisian In nearly all European languages, single-word proper nouns, including personal names, are capitalized (like France or Moses). Multiple-word proper nouns usually follow the traditional English rules for publication titles (as in Robert the Bruce). Where place names are merely preceded by the definite article, this is usually in lower case (as in the Philippines). Sometimes, the article is integral to the name, and thus is capitalized (as in , ). However, in French this does not occur for contractions and (as in , "I come from Le Havre"). In other European languages, it is much more common for the article to be treated as integral to the name, but it may not be capitalized (, , , etc.). A few English names are written with two lowercase "f"s: ffrench, ffoulkes, etc. This originated as a variant script for capital F. A few individuals have chosen not to use capitals in their names, such as k.d. lang and bell hooks. E. E. Cummings, whose name is often written without capitals, did not do so himself: the usage derives from the typography used on the cover of one of his books.See E. E. Cummings: Name and capitalization for further discussion. Most brand names and trademarks are capitalized (e.g., Coca-Cola, Pepsi), although some have chosen to deviate from standard rules (e.g., easyJet, id Software, eBay, iPod) to be distinctive. When capitals occur within a word, it is sometimes referred to as camel case. Some speakers of Eastern Slavic languages associate capitalization with respect and decapitalize proper nouns to show disrespect. In English, the names of days of the week, months and languages are capitalized, as are demonyms like Englishman, Arab. In other languages, practice varies, but almost all languages other than German and Luxembourgish (which capitalize all nouns) do not.Capitalization rules for days, months, demonyms and language-names in many languages from Meta-wiki In English-language addresses, the noun following the proper name of a street is capitalized, whether or not it is abbreviated: Main Street, Fleming Ave., Montgomery Blvd. This capitalization is often absent in older citations and in combined usages: Fourth and Main streets. In French, street names are capitalized when they are proper names; the noun itself (, ) is normally not capitalized: , . In Italian the name of a particular concept or object is capitalized when the writer wants to emphasize its importance and significance.See the entry in the Italian Wikipedia for descriptions of various rules of capitalization in Italian and for references. Capitalization is always used for most names of taxa used in scientific classification of living things, except for species-level taxa or below. Example: Homo sapiens sapiens. Controversially, some authors capitalize common names of some animal and plant species. As a general rule, names are not capitalized, unless they are part of an official list of names, in which case they have become proper nouns and are capitalized. This is most common for birds and fishes. Names referring to more than one species (e.g., horse or cat) are always in lower case. Botanists generally do not capitalize the common names of plants, though individual words in plant names may be capitalized for another reason: (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. Other Romance languages such as French often capitalize such nouns as (the state) and (the church) when not referring to specific ones. Names by which gods are known are capitalized, including God, Athena, and Vishnu. The word god is generally 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 Judaism, Christianity, and Islam rarely refer to the Deity by a specific name, but simply as God (see Writing divine names). Other names for the God of these three Abrahamic faiths, such as Elohim, Yahweh, and Lord, are also capitalized. While acronyms have historically been written in all-caps, British, Finnish, Swedish and some German usage has moved towards capitalizing only the first letter in cases when these are pronounced as words (e.g. Unesco and Nato), reserving all-caps for initialisms (e.g. UK, USA, UNHCR).