Reverential capitalization

Reverential capitalization is the practice of capitalizing religious words that refer to a deity and/or divine being(s) in cases where the words would not otherwise have been capitalized. Pronouns are also particularly included in reverential capitalization:

and God calleth to the light 'Day,' and to the darkness He hath called 'Night;' and there is an evening, and there is a morning — day one.

— Genesis 1:5, Young's Literal Translation (1862)

In this example, the proper name "God", like "Day" and "Night", is capitalized and the pronoun "He" is a reverential capitalization. While proper names are capitalized universally, reverence for any particular divinity (belief is therein implied on the part of the author who capitalizes pronouns in reference to such being) is not universal. In short, when pronouns that are usually lowercase are capitalized, this usually implies that the author personally reveres and regards as a deity the antecedent of that pronoun.

Nouns that are not proper names can also be capitalized out of reverence to the entity they refer to. Such examples include "the Lord", "the Father" and "the Creator".

Capitalizing nouns

Capitalization, punctuation and spelling were not well standardized in early Modern English; for example, the 1611 King James Bible did not capitalize pronouns:

For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name.

— Psalm 33:21, KJV

In the 17th and 18th centuries, it became common to capitalize all nouns, as is still done in some other Germanic languages, including German.

In languages that capitalize all nouns, reverential capitalization of the first two letters or the whole word can sometimes be seen. The following is an example in Danish, which capitalized nouns until 1948.[1]

Vi troe paa en eeneste GUD, en almægtig Skaber af alle Ting, saavel synlige som u-synlige, og paa en HErre JEsum Christum, GUds eeneste Søn, fød af Faderen[...] – Ludvig Holberg, Almindelig Kirke-Historie, 1738[2][3] (Translation) We believe in the one and only GOD, an almighty Creator of all Things, visible as well as invisible, and in a LOrd JEsus Christ, GOd's only Son, born of the Father[...] – Ludvig Holberg, Almindelig Kirke-Historie, 1738

Note that some instances are in all caps (GUD "GOD"), and some begin with two capital letters (HErre "LOrd", JEsum "JEsus"). Some words that could also be said to refer to an almighty being begin with a single capital (Skaber "Creator", Christum "Christ", Faderen "the Father"), but so do all other nouns (Ting "Things"). This type of reverential capitalization varies within a single sentence and would also be dependent on the author and the publisher of a work.

The convention of capitalizing nouns was eventually abandoned in English, and one of the people who was influential in this was Benjamin Blayney, who produced a 1769 edition of the Bible in which nouns were not capitalized—possibly simply to save space on the printed page.[4]

Capitalizing pronouns

In the 19th century, it became common to capitalize pronouns referring to the God of the Abrahamic religions, in order to show respect:

For in Him doth our heart rejoice, For in His holy name we have trusted.

— Psalms 33:21, Young's Literal Translation (1862)

An interesting early case is Handel's 1741 oratorio Messiah, whose printed libretto and published score both use lower case pronouns, but whose holograph conductor's score consistently capitalizes:

…day of His coming … when He appeareth"

— [5][6]

In the 20th century this practice became far less common:

For our heart rejoices in him, because we have trusted in his holy name.

— Psalms 33:21, World English Bible (1997)

Today there is no widely accepted rule in English on whether or not to use reverential capitalization. Different house styles have different rules given by their style manuals. Reverential capitalization is not to be used, for example, according to the style guidelines set by the Chicago Manual of Style[7] or the Associated Press Stylebook. It is prescribed, for example, by the US Government Printing Office Style Manual (2008).[8]

This capitalization rule is also customarily applied in Tagalog and other languages of the Philippines, despite being considered nonstandard and inconsistent by purists who contend that this rule is applied only in English.

References
  1. Retskrivningsreformen af den 22. marts 1948
  2. GUd, Holberg Dictionary
  3. Ludvig Holberg, Almindelig Kirke-Historie, 1738, p. 196
  4. Gordon Campbell, Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611–2011
  5. Messiah, HWV 56: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
  6. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Messiah_(oratorio)
  7. The Chicago Manual of Style, 15e, University of Chicago Press, 2003
  8. "3.3, Religious Terms". U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 36. Retrieved 2018-11-15.
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