# Grammar people...Do you always capitalize the 1st letter in a sentence?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-people-do-you-always-capitalize-the-1st-letter-in-a-sentence/259718>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 13, 2004, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-people-do-you-always-capitalize-the-1st-letter-in-a-sentence/259718 "2004-08-13T18:07:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-people-do-you-always-capitalize-the-1st-letter-in-a-sentence/259718/21 "2004-08-14T10:33:20Z")

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> [@iampunha](#):
>
> Similarly with Oklahoma!.

There’s another question - if you’re writing a sentence about a musical or an English seasise town with a punctuation mark at the end of its name, do you add a period after the punctuation mark? Looks a bit odd if you do, as in this example, but if you don’t it looks as if the mark applies to the whole sentence…

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-people-do-you-always-capitalize-the-1st-letter-in-a-sentence/259718/22 "2004-08-14T16:30:45Z")

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> [@TV time](#):
>
> e.e. cummings would agree that they need not be capitalized.

[No, he wouldn’t](http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm).

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**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-people-do-you-always-capitalize-the-1st-letter-in-a-sentence/259718/23 "2004-08-14T22:59:16Z")

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If I am not working for you, then I write your name following standard english. Note that here, I often “cut & paste” dudes names, so they might remain all lower case. It’s just a silly way of saying PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEE!!! :dubious:

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