In the first the proper noun 'University of Oxford' is used. The word 'I' is not a proper noun , it's a pronoun. In English 'I' is always capitalised. In many other languages the equivalent word is not capitalised. For contractions, capitalise the initial letters of words, but not subsequent letters within the same word.
Contractions are like acronyms, but also include one or more letters from within the same word. The way to deal with these is to write out the phrase and have a look.
We frequently use SkillsYouNeed, contracting the spaces but making the phrase easier to read. Many people wrongly assume that Wi-Fi is a contraction of Wireless Fidelity.
In fact the word Wi-Fi is an entirely made up word - a marketing invention and does not stand for anything. It is, however, officially written as Wi-Fi. Capital Letters Capital letters are useful signals for a reader.
I never thought I'd survive running the rapids. Capitalize the first work in a line of poetry even if it doesn't begin a new sentence --unless the poet did not capitalize it as in the second example below : Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
Capitals signal proper names and titles. Contact us at Academic. It was commonly used by Latin and Greek scribes around the years — Without lowercase letters, punctuation, or spaces between words, some of these texts look downright weird now. Medieval scribes spent all day, every day transcribing text. As they were going along, writing perfectly and quickly, the shape of the letters slowly changed to be more efficient.
Writing was not an everyday thing just yet, and at the time, writers were transitioning from the rough writing surface of papyrus to the smoother parchment and vellum. The use of parchment and vellum made possible a more rounded single stroke writing style instead of the former angular, multiple stroke style.
As the uncial script evolved, a smaller, more rounded and connected Greek-style lettering called minuscule was introduced around the 9th century. Also around the year , Charlemagne ascended to the throne and set about reforming education.
He standardized writing as a way to copy formal, court, and educational materials, and the font of the time became known as Carolingian minuscule. Compared to uncial, this font was easier to both read and write, so texts were more accessible to people. Did you see that?
Right there…back at the beginning of that first sentence. What are we talking about? Did you notice anything strange about that word? Did you? For example, did you notice that it contained one letter twice but it looked different each time it appeared? Have you ever given any thought to how strange that is? Why can't all letters simply be the same? Why do we have both uppercase and lowercase letters? When it comes to letters, case refers to whether letters are written in larger uppercase form , which is also often known as majuscule or capital letters, or smaller lowercase form , which is also known as miniscule or small letters.
For example, the first three letters of the alphabet in uppercase form are A, B, and C. Those same three letters in lowercase form are a, b, and c. Historians believe that majuscule or uppercase letters came first. The first alphabets were written entirely in large majuscule letters, evenly spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds.
Over time, however, it was only natural that smaller versions of each letter would develop. This probably happened as letters were written quickly. To save time and space, letters became smaller and more rounded as scribes hurried to finish their work. These smaller versions of letters eventually evolved into an entire miniscule set of letters. Compared to majuscule versions, the miniscule versions offered improved and faster readability in addition to being easier and faster to write.
At first, scribes would only use majuscule or miniscule letters, but not a mixture of both. That changed over time, though.
Although there were no official capitalization rules in the English language until the early 18 th century, scribes had traditionally written certain letters, such as nouns and the first letters of sentences, in a larger, distinct script for hundreds of years.
Today, lowercase letters are used most frequently, with uppercase letters reserved for special purposes, such as capitalizing proper nouns or the first letter of a sentence. Individual pieces of metal type were kept in boxes called cases. The smaller letters, which were used most often, were kept in a lower case that was easier to reach. Capital letters, which were used less frequently, were kept in an upper case.
Because of this old storage convention , we still refer to small letters as lowercase and capital letters as uppercase. The distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters doesn't exist in all languages, though.
Certain Eastern and Asian writing systems, including certain Indian, Chinese, and Japanese alphabets, do not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters.
Did you enjoy learning more about uppercase and lowercase letters today? Learn even more when you explore the following activities with a friend or family member:. Feel free to add that question to our Wonder Bank! Hi Nathan! Thanks for your post. You provide a thorough explanation! But to clarify, we never said that every writing system is an alphabet, or that Chinese and Japanese languages use alphabets.
We just pointed out that those languages do not distinguish between upper and lower case letters in writing, which is technically true. You have explained why, while we kept our explanation simple to introduce the idea to readers that there is variation out there. You certainly have a wealth of information to share! Hi, Pickachu! We do not have a Wonder about smores
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