Science and Technology news... :: View topic - Using capital letters in English and German?

anais_a · Guest

One of the differences between French, English and German is the use
of capital letters. Although in these three languages we must use
capital letters for the proper nouns (eg. John Smith), for states (eg.
les Etats-Unis, the United States of America, die Vereinigten Staaten
von Amerika), for rivers (eg. la Seine, the Seine, die
Seine)…Unlike French, in German we must also use capital letters
for every common nouns (eg. der Hund, der Wagen, das Haus…); in
English, capital letters must be used for days (eg.: Monday), mouths
(eg. October), seasons (eg. Winter), or adjectives of nationality (eg.
an English man).

Does anybody know if there is another kind of nouns with which we must
use capital letters in English and German?
What>s the origin of this difference between languages?
Has it always been so?
Is it the result of a major change in languages?
Were these rules arbitrarily set?
thanks for your help

J. W. Love · Guest

Anais wrote:

[quote]seasons (eg. Winter)
[/quote]
No: in American English, seasons are lowercased.

Certain geographical features are uppercased or lowercased depending on what
they mean: <the south> is a southerly direction; <the South> is a certain
region of the United States.

Certain words are uppercased or lowercased depending on the writer>s audience:
<Queen Elizabeth II> yields <the Queen> in her realms, but <the queen> in
America.

But this is off-topic for this newsgroup. Why not ask in alt.usage.english?


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