List of case-sensitive English words
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This page lists capitonyms, pairs of English words (excluding abbreviations and proper names) with different meaning distinguished only by capitalization. Some pairs – such as "polish" and "Polish" – are also pronounced differently. In situations where both words should be capitalized (such as the beginning of a sentence), there will be nothing to distinguish between them.
Although some pairs, such as march and March, are completely unrelated, in other cases, such as august and catholic, the capitalized form is a name which is etymologically related to the uncapitalized form. For example, August derives from the name of Imperator Augustus, who named himself after the word augustus, whence English august. And both Catholic and catholic derive from a Greek adjective meaning "universal". Pairs in which one word is simply a secondary meaning of the other – e.g. Masonry (secret society), which is essentially a peculiar use of the word masonry (wall building) – are omitted.
In other languages there are more, or less, of these pairs depending on that language's capitalization rules. For example, in German, where all nouns are capitalized, there are many pairs such as Laut (sound) ~ laut (loud) or Morgen (morning) ~ morgen (tomorrow). In contrast, in Italian, as well as Spanish, almost no words (except proper names) are capitalized, not even months, weekdays nor ethnical adjectives, so there are extremely few, if any, such pairs. (An example is Messa (Mass) ~ messa (feminine past participe of mettere = to put), though the former is sometimes spelled with a lowercase m too.)
- Arabic: of or relating to the Arab world, or the Arabic language
- arabic: (gum) arabic, also called gum acacia, a food ingredient
- August: 8th month
- august: majestic or venerable
- Boxing (Day): 26 December
- boxing: a sport
- calorie: a unit of measure for energy (usually thermal)
- Calorie: equal to 1000 calories; a kilocalorie (kcal)
- The use of all capital letters (example: 9 CALORIES OF HEAT) causes confusion, as the two units are used in the exact same way in a sentence. The use of the terms 'small calorie' and 'large calorie' or 'gram calorie' and 'kilogram calorie' eliminate this confusion.
- Catholic: relating to the Catholic church (usually the Roman Catholic Church) (adj.); a member of that church (noun)
- catholic: free of provincial prejudices or attachments
- Celt: (/kɛlt/ or /sɛlt/) a person from an ethnic group using a Celtic language
- celt: (/sɛlt/) prehistorical axe
- China: an Asian country
- china: porcelain plates and bowls
- Cuban: from Cuba
- cuban: relating to cubes, as in cuban prime (rare technical use)
-
- Notice cuban prime number ~ Cuban Prime Minister
- Gallic: relating to France or to the ancient territory of Gaul
- gallic: relating to galls (abnormal plant growths)
- German: from Germany
- german: close (relative)
- God: "the supreme or ultimate reality" (Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary)
- god: "a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship" (ibidem)
- Ionic: relating to Ionia or to a style of classical architecture
- ionic: relating to (chemical) ions
- Lent: time since Ash Wednesday included to Easter excluded
- lent: past tense and participle of to lend
- Life: a biography (as in "Lives of the saints")
- life: state or condition of a living organism
- March: 3rd month
- march: walk briskly and rhythmically
- Mass: liturgical function
- mass: physical quantity
- May: 5th month
- may: modal verb
- Mosaic: pertaining to Moses
- mosaic: a kind of decoration
- Pole: Polish person
- pole: flagpole, or point of rotation
- Polish: (/ˈpəʊlɪʃ/) from Poland
- polish: (/ˈpɒlɪʃ/) the process of creating a shiny surface (verb) or a compound used in that process (noun)
Some question the correctness of certain case-sensitive distinctions that others make. Examples are church (a building) and Church (an organization), mass (physical quantity) and Mass (liturgical function). In the Soviet Union, it was forbidden to write God with an upper-case letter, making impossible this manner of distinguishing God (the being believed to create and rule the universe) from god (one of beings believed to control some part of the universe).[1]
