Dale's Weblog » looking back it was easy

i?

Posted by dale on Sun, 19 Dec 2004 18:35:50 EST

Okay look at this sentence:

Wow i’ve just found some gold, aren’t i a smart cookie?

What is wrong with that sentence? The thing that sticks out to me is the fact that the “I” in “I’ve” and “I” is lowercase and should in fact be upper case.

But why?

We don’t start each word in the sentence with a capital letter and we don’t write “a” in uppercase (unless at the beginning of a sentence). Is it just because “i” on its own looks dirty or something; does “I” look more professional?

Any ideas?

Below are the comments for this news item

its because of the reference to people and stuff…its like how we use capitals on peoples names…except you dont write "Wow Ben just found some gold…" at least thats my interpretation behind the reasoning

1: Comment by Sphinx^ - Sun, 19 Dec 2004 19:48:34 EST

I believe "I" is a proper noun, meaning it gets capitalized no matter what.

2: Comment by Matthom - Mon, 20 Dec 2004 01:38:29 EST

What Matt said. I is indeed a proper noun as it denotes a 'unique individual' or oneself. From dictionary.com:

proper noun - n: A noun belonging to the class of words used as names for unique individuals, events, or places. Also called proper name.

So yes, it gets capitalized no matter what. ^^

3: Comment by Stuart - Mon, 20 Dec 2004 09:41:31 EST

BBCode:

urls become clickable

[b]place text in bold[/b]

[i]place text in italics[/i]

[quote]place text in a quote[/quote]