by Drublic on January 19th, 2007

Drublic

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Why is the word "I" capitalized, but the words "me", "you", "we", and "us" are not?

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  • by anonymous on January 19th, 2007

    anonymous

    "Ego has nothing to do with the capitalization of the pronoun I. Printing and handwriting have everything to do with it. In Middle English the first person was ich--with a lower-case i. When this was shortened to i, manuscript writers and printers found it often got lost or attached to a neighboring word. So the reason for the capital I is simply to avoid confusion and error. Of course, some writers refuse to be bound by this convention. Two of our favorites, the poet e.e. cummings and Don Marquis, author of archy and mehitabel, both favored the lower-case i" (Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins 303).

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  • by TheAnswerer on January 19th, 2007

    TheAnswerer

    In Middle English, the first person singular was expressed with "ich", eventually shortened to "i" in the lower case. But printers encountered difficulties setting the lower case "i". The letter would be dropped unintentionally or run together with the words that followed or preceded it. So the original purpose of capitalizing the "I" was to make it stand out from other single letters and provide it with the status as a whole word...

    http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question39074.html

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  • by Kat on March 3rd, 2010

    Kat

    Maybe because it stands on its own and looks better capitalised therefore.

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  • by shyj on February 28th, 2010

    shyj

    When we first created english we put the phrase "itch" it soon be came "I" with means a name,any name at that time we used "I" in many phrases and sentances so we used "I" capitalized meaning for a persons name.

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