CAPITALS. The name applied to letters of larger size than the smaller and more usual char acters of the same value in a font of type. Be sides differing in size the larger sizes vary some what in form from the smaller letters, as in B, b; g: R. r. Capitals are normally used only at the beginning of words, although in subject-head ings or other special cases they may be employed throughout. Historically capitals are older than small letters. The immediate ancestors of the European alphabets. the Greek and Roman let ters, are not distinguished as to the two classes of letters, all written alike in large, or majuscule, script. Not only the Greek and Latin inscriptions, but the oldest manuscripts were thus prepared. The same statement holds true still of all Oriental alphabets, in which there is no difference between large and small letters. Grad ually there were evolved from the capitals, or ma juseles, the small letters, or minuscules. The majuscules, being ill adapted to cursive writing. yielded more and more to the minuscules, which an. the sources not only of the small letters, but of the characters employed in handwriting. The use of minuscules gained ground but slowly, and the distinetion between capitals and small let ters was therefore comparatively late. Gradually, however, after minuscule writing had become the rule, it was thought necessary to denote the initial letters of words which were for some reason especially important, as at the beginning of a sentence, by the proper one of the old majus cules. while the rest of the word. and probably of the sentence, retained minuscule seript. In manuscripts the capitals are often richly illu minated, gilded, or made the centre of a small design. frequently of excellent taste. There is, however, no strict rule as to their employment. The same uncertainty holds in early printed books. in the very ()blest the capitals were often represented by a space Nv h ich was afterwards; tilled in by hand, as in the case of the manu scripts, and in later books the capital, though printed, was colored in imitation of the older usage. In the course of time the capitals, which
originally had been used mainly, not exclusively. at the beginning of a section or para graph, became more frequent. First the initial word of a sentence began with a large letter to call attention to its importance. Then words within the sentence were treated in the same way. It is noteworthy, however, that it was praetieally only nouns which were .capitalized initially. This usage still survives in Danish and German, which uniformly begin each noun with a capital letter. German, however, is beginning to break away from this rule. English stands in this regard between German and French, with the other Romance languages, Russian, and the like. Each sentence and line of poetry. as well as the first word of a direct quotation, must begin with a capital. Proper names, and all words consid ered as belonging even temporarily to that cate gory, are similarly treated. This includes names of churches, works of art, religious denomina tions, societies, and in sporadic instances nouns so strongly individualized as to be practically proper names, and • so forth. Examples are, Church of the Transfiguration, Holbein's Dead of a Voting Man, Mennonites, Liberal League. War of the Rebellion. Titles of books capitalize im portant words, although library usage departs Irom this rule. Capitals are also used in names of months and days and the like, as well as in adjectives derived from proper names, in all of which cases French and its cognate languages write the small letter. All names of the Deity and frequently personal pronouns referring to God and Christ begin with capitals. In natural science the names of branches, orders, families, and genera are capitalized, and abbreviations of substantives, excepting weights, measures, and the names of law writs, are written in capital let ters. In the use of capitals in English, as in other languages, the individual usage different writ ers may vary slightly without seriously con travening the general rules governing the use of this class of letters.