10

Possible Duplicate:
Why should the first person pronoun 'I' always be capitalized?

I have serious question here. I just want to know whether to use small or capital letter for denoting I in a phrase. Considering the following example, can anyone help me which of the either one is correct.

Now i want to leave to home.
Now I want to leave to home.

Improve this question
1

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
14

One of the capitalization rules is, to capitalize the letter "I" when referring to yourself, so it must be capitalized:

In English, the nominative form of the singular first-person pronoun, "I", is normally capitalized, along with all its contractions (I'll, I'm, etc.).

So, it would be:

2) Now I want to leave for home.

as well as:

I'm leaving for home.

N.B. Only "i" when used as a pronoun is capitalized.

Improve this answer
3
  • Thanks. Bcoz I have seen people using small 'i' instead of 'I'. So I just thought that I should clarify it.
    – Andro Selva
    Jul 7, 2011 at 5:11
  • Yeah. It's common practise to do that, especially during texting, but its not grammatically correct.
    – Thursagen
    Jul 7, 2011 at 5:20
  • 6
    @Ham and Bacon: It's not an issue of grammaticality, just one of typographical convention.
    – Jon Purdy
    Jul 7, 2011 at 5:46
6

The pronoun form of I should be capitalized in all cases where it stands alone. However, a word beginning with that letter follows normal capitalization rules.

Improve this answer
4
  • 1
    Think of I as a proper noun, like someone's name. For this reason, it should be capitalized.
    – njd
    Jul 7, 2011 at 10:09
  • 2
    @njd By that logic, so should “You”, “He”, “She” and possibly “They”. Why does “I” have this special status (honest question, I have no idea, but it seems very odd and is particular to English). /EDIT: the answer is in the link of @psmears directly below the question. So your reason is wrong.
    – Konrad Rudolph
    Jul 7, 2011 at 15:55
  • Meh. It's no more illogical than I is normally capitalized, but fair enough. I can't be bothered arguing.
    – njd
    Jul 8, 2011 at 9:06
  • 1
    @njd Sorry but it's much simpler to just declare "I" to be an exception to the normal capitalization rules than it is to imply that there's some kind of rule about capitalizing pronouns that stand for a person's name and then have to explain that every pronoun except "I" is an exception to this rule. Occam's razor and all that.
    – David Richerby
    Jan 15, 2019 at 18:21

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.