Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: Jimbee on 17/04/2025 06:18:45
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The first person singular personal pronoun, I, is always capitalized. Why? Why is it the only pronoun we do this with? There's no logical reason. So there must be some history behind it. What? Or is there some logical reason?
I know it says in dictionary, if I remember, that I is from the Anglo-Saxon "ic". And ic is related to "ego" in the Latin language. As I brought up once on another message board, C and G are really the same consonant. But one is voiced and one is unvoiced. So do they do this in any other language, capitalize the first person singular personal pronoun? I've seen "ich" in German before. But I forget if it was capitalized.
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I am real and positive. i is imaginary.
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Not in electrical engineering- we use j for the square root of minus 1 to avoid confusion with i which has ubiquitous use for the current.
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To try to give Jimbee an answer, names are capitalised and personal pronouns are representative of named individuals. However I is the only personal pronoun which is capitalised- sorry i have no answer. I was always good at stem subjects and brutal with languages.
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Oneself doth suppose perchance thy quandry doth harketh to ages past whence thine use of roman numerals was prevalent and likewise the self descriptive "one" when refering to your personage where commonplace. Either that or pirates Jim lad.
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Hi.
This discussion ( "Why do we capitalise the pronoun I", from thesaurus.com ) seems credible:
https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/whycapitali/
I've briefly cross-checked that with a similar article held on a different website and they seem fairly consistent with each other:
https://scottabutler.medium.com/why-do-we-capitalise-i-6ed4548d7261
Basically, no really good reason is known. Many of the historians suggest a need to make this single letter word more obvious as a word on it's own, especially back in the times when most things were handwritten with easily smudged ink.
I've seen "ich" in German before. But I forget if it was capitalized.
This is also discussed in those articles cited above. Basically the answer is no - most other languages do not capitalise their pronoun for "I".
Best Wishes.
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I is the only personal pronoun which is capitalised
apart from the bizarre use of He and Thou among the superstitious, or They (more correctly It) by the gullible woke.
H Rider Haggard introduced She (who must be obeyed) but the modern use is rare and generally held to be ironic.