Capital letters or majuscules (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, ...) are one type of case in a writing system. Capital letters (also simply called capitals or caps) are also known as upper case; manual typesetters kept them in the upper drawers of a desk, keeping the more frequent minuscule letters on the lower shelf. This practice may date back to Johann Gutenberg. ... In orthography and typography, letter case (or just case) is the distinction between majuscule (capital or upper-case) and minuscule (lower-case) letters. ... A writing system, also called a script, is a type of symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language. ... Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ... Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (c. ...

Some languages make no distinction between capital and lowercase letters. Latin, for one, was originally written using only one set of letters—those which we now call capitals. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

Usage

In alphabets with a case distinction, capitals are used for:

1. Capitalization,
2. Acronyms,
3. Better legibility, for example on signs and in labeling, and
4. Emphasis in some languages.

Capital letters were sometimes used for typographical emphasis in text made on a typewriter. However, long spans of text in all uppercase are harder to read because of the absence of ascenders and descenders found in lowercase letters, which can aid recognition. With the advent of modern computer editing technology and the Internet, emphasis is usually be indicated by bolding or italicizing, similar to what has been common practice in print for long. When acronyms require a string of uppercase letters, they are frequently reduced in size by a point or more to make them easier to read. (By contrast, the "small print" in legal documents is often capitalized to make it harder to read.) In electronic communications, it is often considered in very poor "netiquette" to type this way because it can be harder to read and because typing in all capitals can be seen as tantamount to shouting. For any word written in a language with whose alphabet or alphabet equivalent has two cases, such as those using the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, or Armenian alphabet, capitalization (or capitalisation) is the writing of that word with its first letter in majuscules (uppercase) and the remaining letters in minuscules (lowercase). ... Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial letter or letters of words, such as NATO and XHTML, and are pronounced in a way that is distinct from the full pronunciation of what the letters stand for. ... Sign can denote any of the following: Look up sign on Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A label is any kind of tag attached with adhesive to something so as to identify the object or its contents. ... Bold Bold, see Bold (disambiguation). ... The ascenders are the parts of the characters that lie above the midline, highlighted in red. ... The descenders are the parts of the characters that lie below the baseline, highlighted in red. ... Bold Bold, see Bold (disambiguation). ... In typography, italic type refers to cursive typefaces based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. ... Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial letter or letters of words, such as NATO and XHTML, and are pronounced in a way that is distinct from the full pronunciation of what the letters stand for. ... A point is a unit of measure in typography (Abbreviated as pt). There are various sorts of points, used in particular locations and times: Fournier point: the first definition of the printers point, by Pierre Fournier. ... Small print refers to the practice of including necessary legal terms or phrases in small writing on commercial or contractual documents. ... The Internet, or simply the Net, is the publicly accessible worldwide system of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using a standardized Internet Protocol (IP). ... Netiquette (neologism, a portmanteau formed from Internet etiquette) is a catch-all term for the conventions of politeness recognised on Usenet, in mailing lists, and on other electronic forums such as internet message boards. ...

Capitalization is the writing of a word with its first letter in upper-case and the remaining letters in lower-case. Capitalization rules vary by language and are often quite complex, but in most modern languages that have capitalization, the first word of every sentence is capitalized, as are all proper nouns. Some languages, such as German, capitalize the first letter of all nouns; this was previously common in English as well. For any word written in a language with whose alphabet or alphabet equivalent has two cases, such as those using the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, or Armenian alphabet, capitalization (or capitalisation) is the writing of that word with its first letter in majuscules (uppercase) and the remaining letters in minuscules (lowercase). ... Writing may refer to two activities: the inscribing of characters on a medium, with the intention of forming words and other constructs that represent language or record information, and the creation of material to be conveyed through written language. ... A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together. ... A grapheme designates the atomic unit in written language. ... In linguistics, a sentence is a unit of language, characterised in most languages by the presence of a finite verb. ... A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Other meanings

Sometimes also a manuscript itself is called Majuscule, for example the majuscule Codex Vaticanus.

See also

• Small capitals
• Roman square capitals

In typography, small capitals, or small caps, are uppercase (capital) characters that are printed in a smaller size than normal uppercase characters of the same font. ... The Arch of Titus, with an inscription in Roman square capitals Roman square capitals, also called elegant capitals and quadrata, are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. ...

External links

• Codex Vaticanus B/03 Detailed description of Codex Vaticanus with many images.
• All-caps is harder to read