You have a point there

Re: caps after a colon -- Marie Wagner
Posted by Jean Ichbiah ® , Wed, Sep 08, 1999, 21:45:29 Reply Top Forum


According to Eric Partridge, author of "You Have a Point There", the colon is most often not followed by a capital letter. One of the uses of the colon is what Partridge calls Explanatory and Definitional and he gives the examples:
Being questioned how he would define man,... he would define it thus: man is the only animal that has so little sense as to stay up when he should go to bed. -

I should explain it in this way: first, you catch your hare; then you jug him; then you eat him.


Then he adds:
Many writers would dignify the initial word - 'man' and 'first' - with a capital letter, on the analogy of the capital that announces the initial word of a quotation. There exists no hard-and-fast-rule about this; but a sound working-rule could be stated thus:

If you wish to emphasize that the explanation or the definition is, for any reason, important, or to make it stand out more clearly from its context, begin with a capital, but if you do not wish to emphasize it in any way and especially if you wish it to merge it with its context, then begin with a small letter.


So if IT were to capitalize after a colon, there would be a need to override it in too many case. Conceivably, a future version could have an option allowing the specification of a given style.


Jean Ichbiah

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