Questions tagged [capitalization]
This tag is for questions about the use of capital letters in writing.
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Use of em dash to separate different speakers in a quotation(s)
Suppose there are three characters, each saying something different outside of a room and you are listening to them from inside of the room. What is the correct way to punctuate the following using em ...
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Distinguishing lowercase proper nouns in paragraphs
I'm writing a case study about a client whose name is completely lowercase. How do I differentiate the client's name from the rest of the text, making it clear to the reader that it's a proper noun? ...
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Is A Particular Type of Corrosion a Proper Noun?
There is a particular type of corrosion called 'stress corrosion cracking'.
Is this a proper or common noun?
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Why is 'Parliament' spelt without a capital sometimes?
e.g. "To provide an accurate, substantially verbatim account of the proceedings of the parliament and its committees..."
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Search?q=&expand=...
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Chicago Manual of Style Headline-Style Capitalization
In the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, §8.159, the following rules are given (among others) for headline-style capitalization:
Capitalize the first and last words in titles and subtitles ...
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Is the title of a course capitalized if it has no specific name?
Do the names of classes remain without capitalization if they are the simple names of subjects and not specific course titles?
The example that I am looking at is:
"She asked a question in calculus, ...
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Capitalizing the first letter of each word in letter greeting [closed]
I have searched for an answer on the site, but all the questions I have found (e.g. this one) seem to be less general.
Assuming that I'm writing a cover letter to join a team working on a project ...
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Capitalization of Attorney General Office
I understand that "attorney general" by itself should not be capitalized but capitalizing attorney general should be done if it is accompanied by a name (e.g., Attorney General Stewart). But how ...
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Should terms like "Googliness" be capitalized?
Googliness is a neologism whose meaning has been roughly idenfied as possessing:
...Attributes like enjoying fun (who doesn't), a certain dose of
intellectual humility (it's hard to learn if you ...
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Is the Earth a proper or common noun? [duplicate]
I guess the website got this wrong. It says that the Earth is a common noun. In my view it should be a proper noun. Please see the screenshot.
The earth moves round the sun.
• Earth is ...
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When you have a series of questions, should you capitalize the first letter of each question?
When you have a series of questions, should you capitalize the first letter of each question?
Example:
How should this strategy be developed? how can the political decision-makers and those who ...
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Capitalisation of establishment
I've read several pieces about capitalisation of the word 'government' in different scenarios, but how about with the word 'establishment,' as in "the British establishment of the day condemned the ...
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Does the word “uzi” need to be capitalized?
"Uzi" is not contained in any Scrabble® dictionary that I can find online. I am assuming that the Scrabble® powers that be are treating it as a proper noun. However, after reading the Wikipedia ...
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Capitalization/Proper use of apostrophe for omitted letters at start of quotation
Suppose I have a character who can’t pronounce the letter b, and I have him start a sentence with “bananas” in dialogue.
Is this correct, using a single quotation mark in front of a pointing away ...
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Why is ‘Earth’ often spelt with a lowercase e, even when referring to the planet?
The word earth has several meanings; the most central one is ‘soil, dirt’, that thing we walk on when we’re outside. It’s also used as a name for the planet we live on.
The Lexico definition for this ...
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Capitalization question
Wondering if I could get some advice. Should I capitalize the 'f' in British football? Any advice? Thank you
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Should you capitalize incomplete proper nouns?
In my book, a character is falling asleep while trying to speak, so is having trouble getting her words across.
She says "Aley and Om" (Ashley and Tom).
Should "Aley" and "Om" be capitalized?
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Should the names of methods, processes or roles be capitalized?
A question concerning capitalisation to calrify ambiguity as I've seen the words variously capitalized.
Should the names of methods, processes or roles be capitalized? ( f. ex. Agile method, Sprint ...
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How to reffer to Planet Earth using just "Planet"?
Could you please advice should i add 'the' before planet when referring to our planet Earth? And should the words "the" and "planet" be capitalized?
So is the sentence written in the following way: "...
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Capitalizing prepositions in abbreviations?
I've been in the belief that we shouldn't capitalize the prepositions in titles or abbreviations until I started working in a company, where most of the colleagues are American.
When they say "Out ...
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Should "This" be capitalized in title case?
I have read that short words – that is, those with less than five letters – should not be capitalized. However, online sentence-to-title case converters capitalize the pronoun/adjective "this".
What ...
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Why is the "I" in "Indigenous crisis" capitalized?
This is from today's Guardian:
I am wondering why the newspaper capitalized the "I" in "Indigenous".
According to Lexico, indigenous is spelled with a lowercase letter
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Which should be capitalized | Resume
I'm wondering if the words in this list which describe my university coursework should all be capitalized, or just the first word? If its relevant, these are NOT the actual name of the courses. But ...
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A question of case when referring to a floor or level of a building
Can someone please confirm whether the word should start with a capital or not when when the it is used in this context... "We are moving to Level 6, 555 Smith St" or "We are moving to Floor 6, 555 ...
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What is the correct use of hyphens and capitals in "Big Brother style pop competition"? [duplicate]
Not sure it technically should have any, but a Big Brother style pop competition feels like quite a mouthful as it is so I’m wondering whether hyphens might help.
Also want to check the ...
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Capitalization - heated debate on titles
The capitalization in question is the following:
The first commander wasn't happy with the decision you made.
Normally, if I was to swap it out for something like "Dad" it would be capitalized, ...
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Is there a rule for the (non-)capitalisation of Schadenfreude and sauerkraut? [duplicate]
The Cambridge Dictionary capitalises Schadenfreude but does not capitalise sauerkraut. What is the BrE rule for this (other than looking it up in a dictionary or style guide), if any?
NB: According ...
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Questions about capitalizing words in titles [duplicate]
I've got quite a few questions about capitalizing words in titles. I don't know if it's proper to include many questions in one topic, but I couldn't find anything of the sort when I gave the rules a ...
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When a proper noun is converted into a verb, should it be capitalized? [duplicate]
If a proper noun (e.g. Google) is converted into a verb (e.g. Let me (G/g)oogle that for you), should it still be capitalized when used as a verb? I recognize that English has no such concept as a "...
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Capitalization in food
Morning everyone!
Translating a Spanish restaurant menu into English, I found myself doubting whether to capitalize sauce names. Some examples are romesco and Sriracha.
Not being familiar with them, ...
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Would I use 'The FA' or 'the FA' in a sentence?
I'm writing a sentence that refers to The Football Association and want to shorten it to the FA, but I'm unsure whether I should capitalise the T in 'the' or not because its official name is The ...
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Correct capitalization in figure caption [closed]
I'm writing my thesis and it has many figures in it.
I was wondering when I should use upper case and when do I need to use lower case in the caption.
For example:
Figure 23: Lateral moment vs ...
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When a quotation is interrupted by someone finishing the quotation's sentence, should the second part be capitalized?
My question has to do with the following example:
“And remember to turn off the stove after using it in the mornings,
and—”
“Put up all the ingredients,” I finished for my mother with a
little bit of ...
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Is capitalization of the personal pronoun "I" a modern thing in English? [duplicate]
In an answer to a question I asked, the user included an extract from a text seemingly written in older English. Not Old English, but definitely older English, made evident by the fact it spelled e.g. ...
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Capitalisation in texts where the title is also a concept that is referred to within the text?
I'm going to use Karpman's drama triangle as an example for my question because I can't seem to find any consistency around its capitalisation (although I'll admit I don't own the book).
Say you have ...
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All-caps trademark usage. Do I have to follow the all-caps recommendation? [duplicate]
There is a trademark product that is registered with all-caps (example: MATLAB®). However, the all-caps formatting is usually considered bad practice, so the spelling with only title-caps (Matlab) has ...
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What is the correct capitalization for "zip file? "
Because "zip" is not an acronym, my feeling is that it should be "zip file." However, I've seen "ZIP File" and "ZIP file" commonly. What is correct?
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Should I capitalise short phrases of dialogue in the middle of a sentence?
He chanted "activate" to activate his powers.
or
He chanted "Activate" to activate his powers.
This question is specifically for short phrases, not entire sentences.
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Is "mom" a proper noun when it refers to multiple individual mothers?
Having read When should "Mom" and "Dad" be capitalized?, I am confused about what feels like an edge case to me. Context:
A client wants to send out an email to multiple ...
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When referring to the capitalised version of letter in text, should uppercase or lowercase be used?
In practice, which would be correct: "Does the word begin with a capital m?" or "Does the word begin with a capital M"?
In that situation I'm minded to use M, because that's what I'm referring to, ...
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Capital letter in the word City [duplicate]
When should a capital letter be used for the word city?
E.g
spark innovation in the city....
The city has an opportunity....
The city is growing...
Would I use a capital in any of the above ...
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In American English are the following three examples good to use for colon capitalization useage? [duplicate]
I know that a variant of this question has been asked before, and recalled what my Creative writing teacher told me about when to use capitalization after a colon, by using the following three example ...
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Capitalization of president in very specific sentence structure
I know the general rules about when to capitalize "president" but our opinion is divided on this example. It was a headline along these lines.
Trump meets new Kazakh President Nazarbayev in ...
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Do you capitalize Lake when you are referring back to proper noun Tahoe Lake [duplicate]
If I state a proper noun such as Tahoe Lake, and then later in sentence refer to the lake, do I capitalize lake when it refers back to the proper name Tahoe Lake?
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Acronyms and Initialisms- Uppercase, Lowercase, or either
Is there a rule on acronyms and initialisms being spelled out with the first letter of each word being uppercase or lowercase?
Example:
interim final rule (IFR)
Interim Final Rule (IFR)
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Capitalization With Hyphen in Length-Limited Title
Imagine a scenario where you had to write the following title:
A Scientific Breakthrough
However, you were limited in length and had to split it. Do you capitalize “through” even though the original ...
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Department or department? [closed]
I have been asked to review a document but I have a dilemma:
"D" in below phrase should be capital?
"It can flourish collaboration among the members of the Department"?
Or job title:
"The ...
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Number and Capitalization of Phrase [closed]
At work we have what we call "environments" (groups of computers, essentially). Each environment has a number (e.g., Environment 1). I maintain a list of the environments. I am unsure how to ...
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Do I capitalize course concentrations? [closed]
We offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with concentrations in Graphic Design, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, or Crafts and a Digital Media Arts degree with concentrations in Video or Animation.
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