David in Port Washington, Wisconsin, wonders why English capitalizes the first-person singular pronoun I, but not me, we, or us. The usual explanation is practical rather than psychological: a lone lowercase i, especially before the dot became standard, was easy to miss on a manuscript page. It’s not about the “I” being more important. The other personal pronouns have more letters, so they didn’t need the same visual help. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Why Does English Capitalize “I”? Legibility Is the Likely Answer”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is David from Port Washington, Wisconsin.
Hiya, David. Where’s Port Washington?
It’s about 45 minutes north of Milwaukee on the shore of Lake Michigan.
Oh, very nice. Well, what’s on your mind, David?
I have a question about personal pronouns, but it isn’t going to be a rant about the misuse of myself.
Okay.
I’d like to know why, other than biblically, I is the only pronoun we capitalize.
In English.
In English.
And what got you to thinking about that?
Well, I think it was because I noticed a lot of people online are not capitalizing the word I in forums and chatting and things.
And it got me thinking about why we do capitalize I.
And we don’t capitalize me or us or we, anything else that’s self-reflective.
I thought maybe it discounted the idea of self-importance because we don’t capitalize me, but we capitalize I.
I wondered if it was because it so commonly starts sentences,
And we just got in the habit of a capital,
But the other subjective forms start sentences,
And the word the starts a lot of sentences,
But we don’t capitalize any of those words.
So you’re speculating multiple theories here.
Which one do you like best?
The best one I have is that it came out of handwriting
And that it was simpler to just do a slash for the letter I than it was to do a little line and a dot on top of it.
So out of handwriting came the capital I just because it was easier to write.
You know, you’re not far off from what the prevailing theory seems to be,
And there’s no certainty on this answer,
But the prevailing theory seems to be that the lowercase i is very easy to miss in a document,
And it doesn’t stand out very well.
It’s just like one really thin letter hanging out.
The dot, actually, was added later.
Originally, it was just a line.
A lot of the different ways that we write became more standard when you had to do that to make the printing job easier.
And, David, I think that you’re also on to something when you mention the other pronouns,
Like us and we and me.
They’re two-letter, and I is the only one-letter pronoun that we have.
And I think that, again, as Grant was saying, just seeing it on the page, it’s a lot easier to read if it’s capital.
You know, the other words have a little bit more room, so that’s my theory.
It’s legibility as opposed to anything self-important.
I think you’re right, David. So I think it’s really a matter of legibility rather than psychology.
Okay. That’s my hunch. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Take care. This update. All right. Bye-bye.
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