[General] Politeness form, "You"

[ulrikasborg]

Hello, I just registered in the hope of getting an answer to my, not very important, question. Is it possible to use a capital letter in "you" as a way of showing politeness? I do not mean as in "Your Highness" but as "happy to meet You, looking forward to meeting You. In my very vague memories from school days, the "capitalisation" was not allowed, but I see it frequently in texts written by Scandinavians and Finns. Any comments?
Kind regards
Ulrikasborg

 

[Raymott]

Hello, I just registered in the hope of getting an answer to my, not very important, question. Is it possible to use a capital letter in "you" as a way of showing politeness? I do not mean as in "Your Highness" but as "happy to meet You, looking forward to meeting You. In my very vague memories from school days, the "capitalisation" was not allowed, but I see it frequently in texts written by Scandinavians and Finns. Any comments?
Kind regards
Ulrikasborg

This doesn't occur in native English. It's 'You' at the start of a sentence, and 'you' elsewhere.

 

[konungursvia]

She may be thinking of Dutch, where U and je are the polite and familar forms, which are related to English 'you.' Methinks.

 

[SanMar]

Hello, I just registered in the hope of getting an answer to my, not very important, question. Is it possible to use a capital letter in "you" as a way of showing politeness? I do not mean as in "Your Highness" but as "happy to meet You, looking forward to meeting You. In my very vague memories from school days, the "capitalisation" was not allowed, but I see it frequently in texts written by Scandinavians and Finns. Any comments?
Kind regards
Ulrikasborg

I've never seen "you" capitalized in this manner,and yes I would say it is completely incorrect.Perhaps a teacher will comment. Also, "you" is not impolite.

Not a teacher.

 

[riquecohen]

Hello, ulrikasborg. Your question is not unimportant and I believe it has been answered. I hope you will continue to post questions here, as not only you, but others can learn from them. Welcome to the forum.

 

[ulrikasborg]

Thank you for your replies! Dutch is not the language I would think of - instead German, which we in the north are familiar with, and they use "Sie" (not sie)

But now I know the proper way,
regards

 

[konungursvia]

Thank you for your replies! Dutch is not the language I would think of - instead German, which we in the north are familiar with, and they use "Sie" (not sie)

But now I know the proper way,
regards

That's because lower case sie is a different pronoun, in the third person.

 

[birdeen's call]

That's because lower case sie is a different pronoun, in the third person.

Which certainly doesn't mean that politeness isn't the reason for its being capitalized. Many langauges have homonymous pronouns, but it isn't common to capitalize some to make them distinguishable."You" is capitalized in letters in my language too. Some of us even capitalize it in SMS messages.

 

[Tdol]

Some of us even capitalize it in SMS messages.

I still punctuate in SMS. ;-)

 

[TheParser]

Hello, I just registered in the hope of getting an answer to my, not very important, question. Is it possible to use a capital letter in "you" as a way of showing politeness? I do not mean as in "Your Highness" but as "happy to meet You, looking forward to meeting You. In my very vague memories from school days, the "capitalisation" was not allowed, but I see it frequently in texts written by Scandinavians and Finns. Any comments?
Kind regards
Ulrikasborg

NOT A TEACHER


(1) I agree with Riquecohen that You have asked a great question.

(2) Yes, You should avoid capitalizing the second-person pronoun because

English readers are not accustomed to it.

(3) But in your personal correspondence, there is no reason why You cannot

do so. The world will not come to an end.

(4) If You have time, i hope that You will google:

On Language: Me, Myself, and I - NY Times

(a) Ms. Caroline Walker explains why we capitalize the first-person pronoun.

She also suggests that you go right ahead and capitalize the second-person

pronoun while NOT capitalizing the first-person pronoun. It will be, she feels, a

great lesson in humility.

Like the other posters, i hope that You will continue to post more questions.

 

[emsr2d2]

Whilst it's true that the world will not come to an end, I would not encourage anyone to capitalise "you" at any time. It's easy to slip into bad habits and doing something as a personal style or even as something of a joke can become a habit and the writer may find him/herself capitalising "you" in the wrong places. Except at the beginning of a sentence, "you" should never be capitalised.

 

[Allen165]

That's because lower case sie is a different pronoun, in the third person.

NOT A TEACHER.

"Du" and "Dein/Deine/Deiner" can be capitalized as a sign of respect or politeness.

 

[konungursvia]

Isn't that merely a Biblical tradition, like He / His?

 

[Allen165]

Isn't that merely a Biblical tradition, like He / His?

That I do not know. But I've had many German-speaking acquaintances refer to me as "Du" in emails. These are not people I'm close with, but we know each other well enough for "Sie" to be inappropriate. So I guess "Du" is between "Sie" and "du" in terms of formalness.

 

[Barb_D]

Please don't capitalize "you" in regular communications with other mortals. It looks like a mistake or an affectation. (I would forgive native German speakers.)

I had to work with someone who insisted on capitalizting "you" and making "I" lower-case as well as casting her first name in lower case. It was some sort of "others are more important" thing and it was really annoying. Because you had to un-do the efforts of Word to automatically correct these things, you spent more time fussing with her stuff than if she used "I" and "you" normally. It was almost a passive-aggressive thing: By pretending to act as though others are more important, I make you work really hard a communicating with ME.

 

[SoothingDave]

Please don't capitalize "you" in regular communications with other mortals. It looks like a mistake or an affectation. (I would forgive native German speakers.)

I had to work with someone who insisted on capitalizting "you" and making "I" lower-case as well as casting her first name in lower case. It was some sort of "others are more important" thing and it was really annoying. Because you had to un-do the efforts of Word to automatically correct these things, you spent more time fussing with her stuff than if she used "I" and "you" normally. It was almost a passive-aggressive thing: By pretending to act as though others are more important, I make you work really hard a communicating with ME.

Well said. I would read any such efforts as a badge of easy self-righteousness rather than an attempt at actual humility.