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"with capital o" (correcting a plague of commas)

Posted by Word Camel on October 04, 2003

In Reply to: "With capital o" posted by Word Camel on October 04, 2003

: : : : Hi,

: : : : What does it mean that soemthing is "with capital o" ?
: : : : as in "planning with capital o"

: : : : Thanks :)

: : : I don't know. That would be planning with a capital "p," wouldn't it?

: : : Here is an "o" fact. Capital with an "a" refers to the capital city. Capitol with an "o" refers to the actual capitol building.

: : When someone states a plan and prefaces that plan "with a capital X" they mean to emphasize the importance of that plan.
: : For instance, the manager of a corporate sales team may tell his team members that "The rest of this month we will concentrate our time on cold calling---that's cold calling with a "capital C".
: : The manager uses that phrase to emphasize to his team that they need to spend a majority of their time knocking on doors looking for new business.

: It's also used, in the UK anyway, to indicate something official or formal. So "history" with a capital "H" is an officially sanctioned version of history. "Conservative" with a capital "C" is often used to distinguish between a politician who is conservative by nature and one who is a member of the "Conservative" a.k.a the Tory Party.

This idea is very difficult to translate into German in which all nouns are capitalised.

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