Questions tagged [capitalization]
This tag is for questions about the use of capital letters in writing.
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Are mixed case like IaC or GoF in acronyms normative or allowed? [duplicate]
In IT (Information Technology) there are a lot of acronyms with mixed case:
GoF: Gang of four, the oldest I found.
IaC: Infrastructure as Code, very common nowadays
I understand the logic behing ...
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Capitalising Abbreviations in Titles
Could you, please, tell me whether it is mandatory to capitalise lowercase abbreviations in titles (e.g., viz., vs., i.e.), or it's completely wrong, or it's just a matter of preference?
Kittens vs. ...
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Capitalising minor words in titles [closed]
I once learnt that we do not capitalise minor words in titles (articles, conjunctions (a bit ambiguous), and prepositions (a bit ambiguous, too)). However, I later came up with a question: don't we ...
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LeafService or Leafservice [closed]
I have a capitalisation-related question: When it comes to the names of companies, websites, etc. and we make our own names that consist of several words combined with each other, do we have to ...
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Capitalising "to be" in titles [closed]
I have read the rules on whether the verb to be is capitalised in titles and have understood that it sure is. However, I have come up with my own theory, viz.: maybe it is capitalised in titles when ...
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Capitalising addressing words [closed]
As I've understood by what I've read, we have to capitalise addressing words if the ones we're addressing to are very esteemed people. So, does it mean that we can grammatically capitalise such words ...
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Capitalization of "Corporation" and "Institution" in a business web application [closed]
I'm a full-stack web developer, and I'm writing an application that will be used by professional businesses. In my application, I use the words "corporation", "institution", or &...
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Capitalisation of "Führer"
Could you, please, say why we capitalise the not-English word "Führer", which, literally translated into English from German, means "Leader" and is, for some strange reason, used ...
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Is there a word for letters that are shaped the same when capitalized or not?
The letters
c/C, o/O, s/S, v/V, w/W, x/X, z/Z
Are roughly congruently shaped from uppercase to lowercase. Depending on the font, there can be some serif differences but generally they have much less ...
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Capitalizing educational Departments
In a sentence, is a list of academic departments capitalized? For example, "the departments of education, business, and psychology." Or should it look like this "the Departments of ...
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lowercasing "bibles" when referring to the books as objects [duplicate]
Which of these is the best choice:
"He was beaten with bibles."
or
"He was beaten with Bibles."
My take is the lowercase "bibles" is most appropriate because in this case,...
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Should a sound be capitalized or punctuated with "!" in the middle of a sentence?
He ran fast as the wind out of the cave when the rock went "clunk" on his head.
I am not sure how to write clunk here.
...went "Clunk!" on his head.
...went "clunk" on ...
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English-Language Grammar/English-language Grammar(titles) [duplicate]
I tried to find more rules on correct title hyphenation, but my question hasn't gotten its answer yet.
Do we hyphenate the compound adjectives that are not the first adjectives of a compond adjective? ...
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When quoting poetry, is it appropriate to place [sic] after a lowercase 'I'?
I am quoting one of Rupi Kaur's poems. Kaur purposely writes using all-lowercase letters for the pleasing aesthetic of her poetry. However, this may make it a bit difficult to quote. In one of her ...
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Where to find an authoritative, official and old Reference to the Convention of Capitalization after a Letter Salutation?
Where does the convention to capitalize the body of a letter after the salutation come from and are there any references on the subject giving definitive evidence proving this?
Answers should have a ...
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Why isn't a "litmus test" a proper noun? [closed]
A test is a thing, which makes test a noun. A Litmus Test is a specific type of test so why do I never see it capitalized in example sentences. I would think it is a proper noun. What is wrong with my ...
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Should the "F" in "Farmer John" be capitalized mid-sentence?
I'm writing story-generating software. One specific story involves a farmer with a variable name. I'll use "John" as an example. For a "folksy" or "old-timey" or "...
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Capitalisation of "The" in a colloquially abbreviated proper noun [closed]
If you've got a company/venue name with "The" in it, e.g. "The Royal Hotel", you'd always capitalise the "The". Now imagine you colloquially call it "The Royal",...
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Do you always put the conjugate in the same tense when using "and"? [migrated]
when is this right ?
for example : i eat and ... (sleep) a lot .
in this case i m going to conjugate sleep in the present simple since the verb before and is conjugated in the present simple . but i ...
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Capitalisation after colon in British English
From the BBC News website:
Truss: Ground should have been laid for tax cuts
Shouldn't the first letter after the colon be lowercase? According to Grammarly:
In British English, the first letter ...
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Capitalization of acronyms - maybe there is no definite correctness for all cases?
Is it correct to capitalize the acronym when it is a name? Sometimes it is dubious whether it's a name or a word, for example SQL, ANSI, GNU and more would be considered a name so it should be ...
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Starting letter of itemization
Here is an example sentence:
"With the help of their company, (1) we will ... And, ... (2) they will ..."
There are whole sentences separated with . in (1) and (2). I would like to know if w ...
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"you" with a capital letter
After the death of the Queen, I wrote:
I am feeling blue without You.
Immediately, I got a word of criticism on the use of capital "y". Well, I was, sort of, addressing a monarch, and ...
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Why is chess written with a lowercase c whereas the game of Go is written with an uppercase G?
Both chess and Go are board games. Why the inconsistency in their spelling?
Here are two example usages with chess and Go:
It is sometimes called Western chess or international chess to distinguish ...
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Should "kingdom" be capitalized when used alone to refer to a country whose name has the word in it (e.g., the United Kingdom)?
For instance, if I mention the United Kingdom early in my paragraph and then I want to refer to it as "the kingdom," should I uppercase "kingdom" in this case?
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Using a capital letter at the start of a foreign surname
To mention, in English, the French mathematician Guillaume de l'Hôpital only with the surname, should I use De l'Hôpital or de l'Hôpital? Should I use other combination?
I would use the reference that ...
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When to capitalize (or not) the first letter in a question [closed]
Is it proper to capitalize the first letter in EVERY question or is it correct to NOT capitalize it when the question is preceded by a coma, colon, or semicolon within a sentence?
Many thanks!
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What are the capitalisation rules for prefixes in parentheses?
If you'd like to write (co)promotor at the beginning of a sentence, should both 'co' and 'promotor' be capitalised? For example, is it "(Co)Promotors are advised to ..."? Or is there another ...
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Should I capitalize the main topics of my degree? [closed]
I am currently writing a CV. When listing my degrees, I add two bullet points that go into more detail on the main focus of the program. I am unsure whether it is correct to capitalize my degree and ...
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Capitalization Rules for Ellipses [duplicate]
when you have ellipses in a text such as a novel, I was wondering what the capitalization rules are for the first word after the ellipsis. My understanding, which is not based on anything other than ...
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Should all words be capitalized when separated by an ampersand in a bullet list?
Should all words be capitalized when separated by an ampersand in a bullet list?
e.g.,
Department of Chemistry
Physics & Chemistry seminars <--- ?
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Pluralising abbreviations ending in S
From general Googling, I understand it is correct to add an 's' (lower case) if pluralising abbreviations ending in 'S' and this makes sense. However, I am surprised to have so far found no instances ...
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Capitalisation of a sacred object
I'm working in an Indigenous Australian context in which particular sacred trees and animals are capitalised. I'm aware that the specific name of the tree, for example, needs to be capitalised but ...
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Should I capitalize 'western' when it anticipates 'culture'
The following sentences are from the transcription of a BBC podcast
'In the Western culture, we have got a bit of an uphill – I would say - struggle because pre-conceptions around eating insects are ...
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Should "lecturer" be capitalised?
At work, I am sending notifications out to individual students about their lecturer contacting them. My boss keeps writing the phrase “Your Lecturer will be in touch soon”, however I thought in this ...
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Are job titles capitalized when they come after Mr. or Mrs.? [duplicate]
If someone is to call a person Mr. or Mrs. (insert their profession here), is the name of the profession capitalized? I've come across all sorts of rules for when to capitalize or not names of ...
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Capitalization of an article in a sentence
Can an article be capitalized, to cause emphasis of a subject. Specifically the indefinite article A or An. I tried researching this and found capitalization rules but none in regard to being used ...
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Should "aunt" be capitalized in this sentence?
Should "aunt" be capitalized in this sentence?
Jan's aunt Cindy took a ceramics class.
Should it be - Jan's Aunt Cindy or Jan's aunt Cindy?
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Is it orthographically ok to capitalize first letters of important phrases? [duplicate]
Say I am writing an article on something like the Riemann integral or morphogenesis. I have two questions regarding capitalization.
Is it allowed to capitalize the first letter of a composite name of ...
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Why is the A in "Article" capitalized in legal articles when referring to itself? [closed]
I looked at ten different law articles; when refering to itself, the letter A in Article is capitalized. For example, in the abstract it would say something like:
This Article proposes modifying the ...
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Why are only few letters in title of this poem in capital letters while others are not? [duplicate]
The poem is ‘Have you earned your tomorrow’ by Edgar Guest. In my textbook , only certain letters first word is in capital while others are not. My question is why is that ?
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Would You Capitalize a Part of Sentence That is After a Dialogue? [duplicate]
This something that I'm very confused about...
You see, here is one example of the sentence:
I ran ahead and said, "I don't want that," and crashed against a wall.
In this sentence, you ...
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Punctuating nested quotations
I am editing a novel and I have some questions on how to punctuate nested quotations (or quotations within quotations).
Here is the first example:
"I kept saying ‘it’s fake’ and ‘he did this’ ...
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Can you use "Lady" instead of "Miss"? [closed]
Is it possible to use the word lady instead of miss to show respect? And if I use it in front of a name, should I capitalize the word lady? For example, lady Mary Jane or Lady Mary Jane?
I know that '...
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What are the Capitalization Rules for Flowers in Scientific Writing? [closed]
I am editing a scientific writing piece that talks about a certain flower. The flower talked about in the writing is mostly not called by its scientific name (the flower is called Butterfly Pea Flower,...
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Is it a "Spanish-language movie" or a "Spanish language movie"?
As I understand it (please correct me if I'm wrong): "Spanish" is a proper noun and therefore must be capitalized; "Spanish-language" in this case is a compound adjective and those ...
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Does Bourbon-Dijon sauce need to be capitalized? [closed]
Wondering if Dijon needs to be capitalized in our menu. "...served with a bourbon-dijon sauce."
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Should I capitalize the second element in a hyphenated word if the first is a number? [closed]
I am adding a contest I attended to my CV. The official name (translated into English from another language) is '3-minute Physics' popular science competition. However, if I want to make my CV read ...
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Question about capitalization after a colon, as well as a few others going on in an otherwise-unimportant sentence I wrote [duplicate]
Not exactly a life-or-death situation here, it's just a YouTube comment I'm in the process of typing in a discussion on movies, the MCU, and the MCU's version of Spider-Man. Sometimes, I write a ...
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Should you capitalize run-in sentence? [duplicate]
So I come up with a question in narration, and here's a few example:
I know from her smile that she was saying "you look like an idiot" to me.
She was more likely than not dishing me out ...
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