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Thread: English capitalisation of all nouns: when did it die out?

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    Elephant CRSP's avatar
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    Default English capitalisation of all nouns: when did it die out?

    I'm currently reading Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719. All nouns in the text seem to be capitalised. When did this practice die out in English? It must have happened before the start of the 1800s, as checking the DoI and CotUS reveals no wacky capitalisations. Was there a technical reason for this perhaps (i.e. it being harder to typeset), or just a shift in style?
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    Default Re: English capitalisation of all nouns: when did it die out?

    If by DoI you mean the US Declaration of Independence, there is at least more capitalization than would be typical in English text today. Here's an image (so you know the text has not been modernized in any way) "When in the Course of human events" . . . "Laws of Nature" . . . "inalienable Rights". They don't capitalize every noun, and I don't really know if that was ever the norm in English text the way it is in German, but capitalization was definitely a much bigger thing than it is today at least as late as the late 18th century.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    This is an interesting question. Having studied German, I was aware that all nouns are capitalized in it, obviously, but I'd never given much thought to the practice in English. Were nouns capitalized in the earliest examples of written English?

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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    Were nouns capitalized in the earliest examples of written English?
    English predates the distinction between capital and lower-case letters.

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    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Exy View post
    If by DoI you mean the US Declaration of Independence, there is at least more capitalization than would be typical in English text today. Here's an image (so you know the text has not been modernized in any way) "When in the Course of human events" . . . "Laws of Nature" . . . "inalienable Rights". They don't capitalize every noun, and I don't really know if that was ever the norm in English text the way it is in German, but capitalization was definitely a much bigger thing than it is today at least as late as the late 18th century.
    Was that being done for emphasis, then? Or, I suppose in some of the cases above, to make the ideas expressed seem more like Truths?

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    Quote Originally posted by Sarahfeena View post
    Was that being done for emphasis, then? Or, I suppose in some of the cases above, to make the ideas expressed seem more like Truths?
    No idea, I'm hoping someone who actually knows shows up.

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    Yes, I'm a cat. What's it to you? Muffin's avatar
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    It is fairly common in Canadian legal briefs, e.g. "The Plaintiff filed a Statement of Claim with the Registrar of the Court." From what I can tell, the usage remains for three reasons. First, we rely heavily on precedents, so old usage is slow to change. Second, some folks like to use initial capitals for nouns that they think are important. Third, initial capitals can be helpful to distinguish multi-word names from the rest of a sentence, e.g. "He filed Letters of Administration Without a Will" clearly indicates that "Letters of Admnistration Without a Will" is a particular document, whereas "He filed letters of administration without a will" does not distinguish betwen the document being "letters of administration" or "letters of administration without a will."

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    Yes, I'm a cat. What's it to you? Muffin's avatar
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    My library is in boxes at the moment, and I never had much of a memory, so I can't provide any examples, but my best guess is that the move toward cleaner, less capitalized, typography was in the mid-1700s. Neo-classical architecture and Augustan political essays used smooth, clean lines -- architectural lines and lines of argument -- while at the same time wanted to stand out from the clutter and shouting of the over-the-top writing common in the Restoration.

    Add to this the development of the novel, which really took off in the 1700s. Prior to then most fiction (aside from traditional romances) was written as poetry. Novels, in which the narrative was conveyed in sentences and paragraphs, needed to use typography and layout that assisted in reading, rather than interrupted reading. Initial capitals worked nicely to indicate the start of sentences, whereas they tended to clutter up sentences when too many words in those sentences were capitalized.

    Combine the two -- the cool dudes at the top of the intellectual pile streamlining writing by reducing the use of initial capitalization, and the popular authors of a new art form (novels) needing a more efficient typography and layout. Shazam – the use of initial capitalization was reduced. Since then, the move to greater simplicity has continued. For example, these days you don’t see too many single paragraphs that are more than a page long, or book titles that are half a page long.

    Just IMHO, though, so don't take it as fact.
    Last edited by Muffin; 13 Oct 2009 at 07:48 PM.

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