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Capitalization in Spanish

 

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  #11  
Old January 08, 2014, 08:02 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rsheldon View Post
Esto es nuevo para mí.

¿Qué debo escribir?:

"Ve hacia el norte" o "Ve hacia el Norte"

Or are both of those completely wrong?
Your first sentence is correct.

Here are the rules:

Mayúsculas
4.13. Se escriben con mayúscula inicial "los nombres de los cuatro puntos cardinales (Norte, Sur, Este, Oeste) y de los puntos del horizonte (Noroeste, Sudeste, etc.), cuando nos referimos a ellos en su significado primario, como tales puntos, o cuando forman parte de un nombre propio: La brújula señala el Norte; La nave puso rumbo al Noroeste; Corea del Norte; la Cruz del Sur. [...]. Sin embargo, cuando los nombres de los puntos cardinales o de los puntos del horizonte están usados en sentidos derivados y se refieren a la orientación o la dirección correspondientes, se escribirán en minúscula: el sur de Europa, el noroeste de la ciudad, el viento norte".

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  #12  
Old January 08, 2014, 08:34 PM
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Thanks Rusty. I don't think English ever uses the capital letter at the beginning of cardinal directions except in proper nouns, such as "North America" and "South Carolina". It strikes me as odd that you would use the capital letter at the beginning of "north" to describe where a ship is sailing or where a compass points, but other than that the rules make sense.

Last edited by Rsheldon; January 08, 2014 at 08:42 PM.
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  #13  
Old January 09, 2014, 10:22 AM
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Are occidente and poniente subject to the same rules?
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  #14  
Old January 09, 2014, 02:41 PM
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Yes, Poli. "Occidente", "Poniente", "Levante", are subject to the same rule of being written with a capital letter.
[There are orthography notes about it in the DRAE for these words.]


@Rsheldon: It's just as striking to us that English capitalizes the days of the week and the months.
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  #15  
Old January 09, 2014, 07:03 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar View Post
@Rsheldon: It's just as striking to us that English capitalizes the days of the week and the months.
Haha fair enough.
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  #16  
Old February 18, 2014, 02:03 AM
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Lo del "norte" con mayúscula es nuevo para mí también.

Yo siempre había pensado que era:
"mi amigo vive en el norte de España"
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  #17  
Old February 18, 2014, 11:17 AM
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Para una explicación detallada de cada una, el conjunto completo de las reglas para usar las mayúsculas está en el Diccionario panhispánico de dudas. [Click aquí.]
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