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Test your grammar
AoG:
--- Quote from: harpy on May 09, 2010, 08:28:44 PM ---Well I can not manage grammar (commas, we have loads of them) in my native language (thou it is much more complex and so on...and I can never understand when you put a comma in English...well I can not do that properly in my native as well, but then again its still much more complex then English :D )
already sorry for my horrible grammar anyhow :D have been sorry for ages now... (got something like 8 points in this test :D me suck...)
oh oh oh - and why does Mom and Dad have to be with capital letters? It's not like mom and dad is proper noun, its just the title....em does all the titles in English have to be written with capital letters? Like - President Mambaza and not president Mambaza ???? We write things with capital letters only if they are proper noun or if you show a respect to a person like you and You (just that we have 2 different words to express this thing in English that is done by you and You :D )
and and and - why does all the words in titles of books usually are written with capital letters?
AND why do one needs to write the name of the language with capital letter and citizenry with capital letters as well? Yeah you do write the name of the country with the capital, but why the citizens and the language should also be written with the capital letter? its not like its The Citizen, it's just a citizen or The Language but just language....
I mean I understand that in German you write all nouns with capital letter (always the same, kind of makes sense, at least its the same for all words), but English just do not make sense most of the time..... I don't even understand why "I" always should be written as capital letter.... it is just a pronoun, why is it so special that should be written with a capital letter? Is there some kind of meaning behind it. In my language you can do both way and if you actually write it with capital letter it means something
Can please someone explain to me what's the deal with the usage of capital letters in english ???
--- End quote ---
You capitalize the first word and proper nouns such as names(Jim, John, and Jack) and places (Atlanta, Phoenix)
harpy:
--- Quote from: AoG on May 09, 2010, 08:33:00 PM ---
--- Quote from: harpy on May 09, 2010, 08:28:44 PM ---Well I can not manage grammar (commas, we have loads of them) in my native language (thou it is much more complex and so on...and I can never understand when you put a comma in English...well I can not do that properly in my native as well, but then again its still much more complex then English :D )
already sorry for my horrible grammar anyhow :D have been sorry for ages now... (got something like 8 points in this test :D me suck...)
oh oh oh - and why does Mom and Dad have to be with capital letters? It's not like mom and dad is proper noun, its just the title....em does all the titles in English have to be written with capital letters? Like - President Mambaza and not president Mambaza ???? We write things with capital letters only if they are proper noun or if you show a respect to a person like you and You (just that we have 2 different words to express this thing in English that is done by you and You :D )
and and and - why does all the words in titles of books usually are written with capital letters?
AND why do one needs to write the name of the language with capital letter and citizenry with capital letters as well? Yeah you do write the name of the country with the capital, but why the citizens and the language should also be written with the capital letter? its not like its The Citizen, it's just a citizen or The Language but just language....
I mean I understand that in German you write all nouns with capital letter (always the same, kind of makes sense, at least its the same for all words), but English just do not make sense most of the time..... I don't even understand why "I" always should be written as capital letter.... it is just a pronoun, why is it so special that should be written with a capital letter? Is there some kind of meaning behind it. In my language you can do both way and if you actually write it with capital letter it means something
Can please someone explain to me what's the deal with the usage of capital letters in english ???
--- End quote ---
You capitalize the first word and proper nouns such as names(Jim, John, and Jack) and places (Atlanta, Phoenix)
--- End quote ---
well I get that, but this "test" shows that you have to capitalize words like Mom and Dad as well. And grammar fixing thing in Firefox and in MS Word also try to make "english language" into "English language" and so on as mentioned above. Also I do not get why all the words in titles starts with capital letter ( well not words like of and and so on) and why "I" is written as capital not "i"....
I do not get that part.....
shabutie:
I think the capital Mom and Dad are because those are suppose to be 'formal' titles in place of names... I dunno... You don't capitalize sister or brother... Maybe it's an elder thing /shrug
And yes, harpy, formal titles are capitalized. (Like: Doctor Brown, Mr. Park, President Oasis). I think it's go something to do with it becoming part of their defining name, which is always capitalized.
No clue why titles are capitalized... maybe to distinguish it from the rest of the text? No clue... No one ever taught me why, just that it should :P
(click to show/hide)
^ Please note: I've never gotten higher than a D+ in any of my English classes.
Path:
--- Quote from: harpy on May 09, 2010, 08:52:00 PM ---well I get that, but this "test" shows that you have to capitalize words like Mom and Dad as well. And grammar fixing thing in Firefox and in MS Word also try to make "english language" into "English language" and so on as mentioned above. Also I do not get why all the words in titles starts with capital letter ( well not words like of and and so on) and why "I" is written as capital not "i"....
I do not get that part.....
--- End quote ---
You misunderstand the rule; here, mom and dad are taking the place—substituting—of proper nouns. In "I'm visiting Mom and Dad over the weekend," mom and dad replace proper nouns, i.e., the actual names of your parents. If you were to say "I'm visiting my mom over the weekend," you wouldn't capitalize.
Any word derived from a proper noun is to be capitalized. English is derived from England and is therefore capitalized.
I is capitalized because, well, it is. No one truly knows why, but the dominant theory among linguists is that the solitary i simply didn't work very well, especially not with the methods of writing available at the time. It wasn't always capitalized; it was only after the pronoun was shortened to I that the practice began.
--- Quote from: shabutie on May 09, 2010, 08:59:47 PM ---I think the capital Mom and Dad are because those are suppose to be 'formal' titles in place of names... I dunno... You don't capitalize sister or brother... Maybe it's an elder thing /shrug
--- End quote ---
No. You should always capitalize words such as brother, daughter, grandmother, and father when they are used in lieu of a proper noun, i.e., the name of that person. Normally, these words follow a possessive pronoun, however, and then you don't capitalize them.
"He is my brother."
but
"Where have you been, Brother?"
shabutie:
--- Quote from: Path on May 09, 2010, 09:16:45 PM ---
No. You should always capitalize words such as brother, daughter, grandmother, and father when they are used in lieu of a proper noun, i.e., the name of that person. Normally, these words follow a possessive pronoun, however, and then you don't capitalize them.
"He is my brother."
but
"Where have you been, Brother?"
--- End quote ---
Gotcha. So you capitalize it when you're using in place of their name, but not when you're defining them as such?
(For example: Where is my brother? / Where is Brother?*)
*Sounds like a line outta FFVI: Advent Children >.>
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