He, we, you, she, they and I. One of these things is not like the others, but who asks why? I do.

Capitalization is one of the most basic concepts of English grammar, and the rules are pretty straightforward. One must always capitalize a word if it begins a sentence, is a proper noun or if it is the word “I.”

The first two reasons make sense.

we see it often enough. people sometimes get a little lazy. they might decide not to capitalize the first words of sentences. when every sentence starts with a lowercase letter, it becomes more difficult to readily identify where one sentence ends, and the next begins.

Proper nouns get their capitalization to emphasize their distinction from fellow common nouns. It is important to us that the city of Wichita is given full respect, rather than seeing it as wichita, just another city. And of course, Monica and Pierre should be respected as individuals, rather than two unimportant things, monica and pierre.

But why “I”?

In her article “Me, Myself, and I” as it appeared in The New York Times, Caroline Winter noted that English is the only language to capitalize its first person pronoun. Most other languages keep all pronouns in the lowercase. German is an exception, where certain forms of “you” get to join the ranks of the capitalized elite – but not “I.”

Winter quoted Charles Bigelow, a type historian and font designer, who said that in Old and Middle English, the lowercase “i” simply looked too puny to represent a full word. Scribes opted to make the letter bigger, which eventually turned into the capitalized version of itself.

That’s fine, i suppose.

Wait – did you see that? It doesn’t look so bad after all, does it?

Think about the implications of writing your own pronoun as tall, towering and un-dotted, while subjecting everybody else to the lower class, lower case “h” or “s” of “he” and “she.” Going by the proper noun principal, you become the noteworthy subject, while everybody else is but commonplace material.

I am a firm believer in equality in every sense. For me, this extends as far as keeping myself just as lowercase as my peers. Only when my first person pronoun begins the sentence will i capitalize my I’s. Alternatively, one could opt for capitalizing every pronoun, but that’s akin to “Everyone is special.” Doing it all the time diminishes the actual effect of capitalization.

Unfortunately, if i were to submit an essay, application or write a professional letter without employing the big I, i would be instantly judged for poor grammar conventions. Microsoft Word has been giving me a hard time, and I bet the editors here at The Sunflower are going to give me a bit of hell, as well. At the moment, i mostly keep this principal to my informal communications.

When will it be acceptable to make this appropriate for formal writing? Realistically speaking, i imagine it will never happen.

But, if this has got you thinking and you agree, why not give it a shot? People are willing to shoot texts to u all the time. Granted, that’s a different story, but it holds some relevancy nonetheless. I encourage you to mull over these ideas, give ‘em a thought, and give it a shot.

As Caroline Winter put it,

“It may be a humbling experience. It was for me.”