CAPITAL

CAPITAL, also capital letter. A large LETTER such as A, B, as opposed to a small letter, a, b, so named because it can appear at the ‘head’ of a text, chapter, page, paragraph, sentence, or word. The written and printed form of English has two interlocking systems of letters: large letters, known variously as capitals, upper-case letters, majuscules, and small letters, or lower-case letters, minuscules. Not all written languages have such a system; Arabic and Hebrew have only one set of letters. Lower-case letters are revisions of the forms of Latin capitals, developed in the minuscule script of the Carolingian period in France (8–9c).

Capitalization

The consistent use of capitals in Western European languages, to begin the first word of a sentence and for the first letter of a proper name (for example, John, Mr Smith, New York), began in the late Middle Ages, and was not fully systematized in English until the end of the 16c. During the 17c and 18c, common nouns and other words were often capitalized, much like (though less consistently than) the capitalizing of common nouns in present-day German. This practice is now largely restricted to abstract nouns like Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; even then the use is often ironic, truth being usually less absolute and grand than Truth. The practice of capitalizing content words in the titles of books, book chapters, articles, etc., is well established, but is not followed in all systems of reference, so that although Gone with the Wind is the dominant usage, Gone with the wind is also found. Despite the expectation that there are or should be rules for capitalization, above all for proper nouns, conventions remain unstable: should/Should the first word in a clause that follows a colon be capitalized? In BrE, the practice is generally not to capitalize in such cases, whereas AmE tends to favour a capital. Is it the Earl of Essex or the earl of Essex? There is no absolute rule, but there is a consensus in printing styles for Earl when designating an actual title.

Additional uses

(1) To identify a word more closely with a particular ethnic or other source: the Arabic language (contrast arabic numbers); the Roman alphabet (contrast roman numerals, roman type). (2) To identify a word more closely with a particular institution or highlight a particular term, usage, etc.: the State as opposed to the state; the Church as opposed to the church; Last Will and Testament as opposed to last will and testament. (3) To give prominence to such special temporal usages as days of the week, months of the year, and epochs (Monday, September, the Middle Ages), and such institutional usages as certain religious terms (God, the Mass) and trade names (Coca-Cola, Kleenex). (4) In a series of block capitals or block letters, to ensure that a handwritten word or name is clear. Serial capitals used to represent stressed speech are a largely 19c development: ‘“MISS JEMIMA!” exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the largest capitals’ ( W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1847–8, ch. 1); Tweedledum, in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871, ch. 4), crying in a great fury, ‘It's new … my nice NEW RATTLE!’, where small capitals grow to full capitals, because his voice ‘rose to a perfect scream’. (5) Initial capitals are widely used to highlight or dramatize certain words: ‘The first rule of politics is Never Believe Anything Until It's Been Officially Denied’ ( Jonathan Lynn & Antony Jay, Yes Prime Minister, 1986). (6) ‘Internal’ capitals have become fashionable in recent years, especially in computing and commerce, to indicate that in a compound or blend the second element is as significant as the first, as in CorrecText, DeskMate, VisiCalc, WordPerfect. Related word- and letter-play may also occur, as in VisiOn, CoRTeXT. Such a convention allows an unlimited range of visual neologism. See ALPHABET, PUNCTUATION.