h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yea, well I wasn't very proud of my first example either, putting 'father' at the start of the sentence negating the rule I was citing.

But this gets us no closer on the 'I' rule. I've looked around and all I can find is the rule itself with no reasoning for it. "Always capitalise the personal pronoun 'I'."

Ok... so as far as I can tell so far "Capitalise 'I' because your teacher told you to!"

when referring to to ones sely i becomes a pr pr proper noun

If so, why wouldn't the same apply for 'He' and 'She', 'They' and 'We'?... Specifically 'We' as it is the plural form of 'I'?

But 'I' in this case *always* refers to one's self. It is not, ever, a proper noun (unless you name your child 'I' I guess ).

'I' is a pronoun, like all the others, except this one is capitalised. I'm pretty sure the reason it was retained was due to clarity and legibility in manuscripts.

There is something I can almost remember about 'i' and manuscripts where it was written as either 'i' without the dot or as two 'i's without dots over each other, and eventually the second 'i' became the dot on the current 'i'. I think this may have something to do with the use of latin numerals (ie xiii) and some means of distinguishing between them.

Just to clear up the original question before the digressions completely take over, Ictoan was pretty much right the first time, except that it was essentially to avoid confusion with the roman numeral i, as numbers hadn't arrived yet. There's a fairly lengthy evolution, but the progression goes something like this:

We start with 'ic' as the personal pronoun of choice for the discerning Old English author, although 'i' had no dot. The dot (actually another miniature i) was added to make it a bit more obvious that it was in fact a letter rather than some random artifact. Then a convention evolved to write i with a descender (ie 'j') if it was the final letter in a word or number. But this could still be confused with the Roman numeral j(ie i(ie 1(ie one))), so the personal pronoun got shifted up so that its bottom was at the baseline, and now looked like an 'l' with a dot. The distinction was now sufficiently clear, so everyone was fairly happy, but the dot looked a bit silly up there above the cap line, so that disappeared and we ended up with something that looks just like a capital i. In short, I is not a capital i, it's a dotless lower case i that's been stretched, and merely happens to look exactly like a capital i.

As far as I remember, it has something to do with the old English alphabet and the sign for I being just a large squiggle. But I'm very vague on this sort of thing, fascinating as it is.

It would be rather futile doing a search for "I" - even if we could limit it to the thread we searched, I should think.

Mycroft, thankyou! That was what I was trying to remember!

Oops! I left out the bit where 'ic' lost the 'c'.

whah used as the royal"We" it should be capitalised

The royal "We" is merely an extention of the capitalization of pronouns referring to God: when a monarch says We, it means God and I. As such it's not really a grammatical rule, more a bit of cap doffing in the same way that it's not ungrammatical to address a member of the Royal family as "you useless freeloader".

Mycroft. I knew there had to be a better reason than, "Because the grammar book says so!"

How about this (from alt.uage.english FAQ):

The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (Wilson, 1988, ISBN 0-8242-0745-9) says: "~I~ pron. 1137 i; later I (about 1250, in The Story of Genesis and Exodus); developed from the unstressed form of Old English (about 725) ic singular pronoun of the first person (nominative case). Modern and Middle English I developed from earlier i in the stressed position. I came to be written with a capital letter thereby making it a distinct word and avoiding misreading handwritten manuscripts. In the northern and midland dialects of England the capitalized form I appeared about 1250. In the south of England, where Old English ic early shifted in pronunciation to ich (by palatalization), the form I did not become established until the 1700's (although it appears sporadically before that time)."

Thanks, Mycroft.

So, let's see if I got you right here.

The capitalized "I" is a remainder of the old days when the "i" in "ic" had to be specifically marked to avoid confusing the OE word for "I" with the Latin spelling of "99"?

Well, that does sound sound to me, but I just can't see myself explain that to my students (who prompted the question, in the first place). So for them "because I tell you so" will have to do as an explanation



Y.

Well, ic propose that we see if we can come up with a better explanation. Historical accuracy is NOT a requirement.

Ok... try this

It all goes back to the philosopher Descartes and his fellows. After many discussions on the topic of identity and self awareness it was determined that there is no greater reality than that which is inside oneself therefore the person speaking takes on a significance of godlike proportions vis a vis their own existance and perspective of the world. Therefore the personal pronoun should be capitalised the same way that 'God' and the royal 'We' is capitalised.


Hows that to tell your students?

Yelbakk, when it was still ic there wasn't too much trouble because Roman numerals weren't really used much and people just wrote out the numbers in longhand. The trouble was caused by a combination of losing the c, adopting Roman numerals, and a reluctance to waste incredibly expensive paper by leaving spaces between words. The clarification was driven by the need to make sure the numbers were accurate, rather than attempts to assert the author's ego. Just tell your students it's because an accountant said so and you'll be nearer the mark

Ic will certainly try that one

At the same time ic suspect that it would also be helpful to point out to the fact that "ic" was probably pronounced as "itch," so we can all understand why, back in the olden golden days, they were happy to reduce "ic" to "I," considering the possibility of exchanges like:

"Thou artst a nasty girl to scratch thy thigh..."
"No, ic am not. It is only that ic have an itch nigh my thigh, there's why!"

And ic also have to be faster in replying. Mine previous post was in reply to Count Zero's sugguestion.

"Thou shalt capitalize "I" because an accountant sayeth thus!"

On the idea of making up stories for your class it's not without precedent. Performance artist Laurie Anderson got started that way. She originally was a cultural anthropology teacher. On a few occasions she neglected to prepare her class notes and so she just 'winged' it. When she was later testing her students on the 'facts' that she had made up she realised it was time to change carreers. (Her students did fairly well on her tests by the way.)

Yea, me too... my was for that "ic ... thigh" refrain.

Thanks, Count Zero, for the applause.

It is with great pleasure that ic accept the praise.

Y.