Gangstarr
Group: Admin
Posts: 67
Member No.: 2
Joined: 26-April 06
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Capitalization.- The first word of a sentence;
- The first word in a line of poetry;
- The major words in the title of a work;
- Proper nouns (names), including most adjectives derived from proper nouns (Spanish from Spain, Freudian from Freud);
- Personal titles when they come before a name (Mr. Smith, Ms. Jones, Dr. X, Captain Beefheart, Reverend Gary Davis, Grand Vizier Lynch);
- All (or most) letters in an abbreviation (NASA, MRI).
It's sometimes tricky to figure out what counts as a proper noun: it's customary to capitalize Renaissance and Romantic when they refer to historical periods, but not when they mean any old rebirth or something related to romance. (Even more confusing, Middle Ages is usually capitalized, but medieval isn't, even though they refer to the same thing, and one is just a Latin translation of the other. Go figure.)
It's common to capitalize President when referring to one President of the United States, but you'd refer to all the presidents (no cap) of the U.S., and the presidents of corporations don't warrant caps unless you're using president as a title. Go figure.
In some house styles, the first word of an independent clause after a colon gets a cap: "It leads us to one conclusion: Not enough rock bands use horn sections." I don't much like it, but de stilis domorum non est disputandum — there's no arguing about house styles.
By the way, DON'T USE ALL CAPITALS FOR EMPHASIS — it makes your writing look amateurish, and it's more difficult to read. (Mixed upper- and lowercase is easier to read, since the eye recognizes the overall shape of the words, with their ascenders and descenders. ALL CAPS simply appear as blocks, and readers have to slow down to figure them out.)
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